


Captivating, hypnotizing, fascinating Utopia

by Quarkie



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Family, It's my first time so there's probably lots of problems with this, M/M, Mystery, Original Character(s), Other, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slow Build, Violence, psychological violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quarkie/pseuds/Quarkie
Summary: Four years ago, in the midst of a terrorist attack a young boy named Yuma Tsukumo was never confirmed dead. His body was never found. In searching for the slivers of traces of his missing father, Kaito Tenjo stumbles upon a young teenager, who decides to call himself "Yuma".Meanwhile an undercurrent fear is rising again: Don Thousand seems to be planning something. This scheming mastermind, with eyes all over the cyber network, has declared that he has plans for Haruto, Rio and the boy Yuma. Neither Kaito nor Ryoga have no intentions to let Don Thousand do as he pleases. Yet as along the way, they faced with the shocking lies and truths that this futuristic society is built up on.





	1. Raein

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. This is my very first fanfiction. Constructive criticism is most welcome.  
> Apologies in advance for any grammar errors. Please let me know if there is anything confusing (since I'm not very good at expressing in English at times)

_It had started at the loud explosion. What soon followed was a series of screams of terror across the entire museum. Pieces of debris began to rain down towards everyone._

_Akari grabbed onto her younger brother’s hand, both equally numb from fear. The exit. Where was the exit?_

_Many others outran the two siblings, all towards a single direction. She could barely process the sounds, but her skin could feel the vibration of fear from everyone around her. And at that moment, her right hand suddenly felt cold from the lack of  grasping another hand. Her eyes widened as her head turned back._

_“Yuma!” Akari had yelled as the pressing of other people’s bodies had pushed her out the door. Time slowed before her eyes as she saw the look on Yuma’s face. The look of desperation and fear clear in his eyes. And in the next instant, she had found herself standing outside the building, her brother nowhere to be found._

_She saw her hands clawing towards the door in front of her. Her body had seemed to be moving on it’s own, only to be held back by some stranger who had also escaped._

__“Mum! Dad! Yu-!”_  
_

Akari opened her eyes, staring at the engraved names on the stone in front of her. She hadn’t noticed how much time had passed until realizing that the sky was already dark. There was a soft glow of light, from the neon-lighted skyscrapers from far central part of the city to show that the city was nowhere close to resting.

There were a few others who were also here. They weren’t bothered by the light rain as they stood in front of other engraved stones with an equally somber expression. If they were coming today to visit today, were they also victims of the terrorist attack four years ago?

Akari took a deep breath, trying to push away the images that were still lingering in her mind.Her grandmother, Haru, had been reminding them both that no matter what to not be consumed by grief. To always “kattobingu”, as her father had said. While the red-haired girl never found herself using that phrase, she knew very well that she always needed to remember that she was alive, and that she had obligations to fulfill. Yet, every year when this day was approaching, blurred images would resurface like a recurring dream. Above all, thoughts of regret would haunt her the few minutes that she would stand here.

If only the two hadn’t separated from their parents in the museum.

If only she had held onto Yuma’s hand tighter.

If only she had gone back to find him.

Her nails dug into her palm at that last thought. Four years ago, she had confirmed with her own eyes the bodies of her parents. Yet Yuma’s was never found.

Yuma had been able to pull off rather… peculiar stunts in the past, even for his age. If, by some chance of a miracle, he had escaped, he wouldn’t not know to find his family. Nor he could have escaped from the eyes of the city, with the heavy surveillance set up in that area by Heartland. But, if he wasn’t alive why was his body the only one missing?

Her train of thoughts were interrupted when she felt a vibration from her left jacket pocket. 

“Hi, Kotori?” Akari kept her voice low to not disturb the quiet atmosphere.

“Hi, Akari. I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner together with Grannie Haru?”

It was as though Kotori was walking on eggshells with the careful tone she talked. Akari gave a light smile and replying in a more casual manner, not wanting the other to worry. “Sure. I’d like that. I still need to stop by somewhere for work before that. I’ll message you when I’m close to home.”

The other gave an affirmative reply before the phone call had ended. The screen no longer was displaying the contacts page, but the homescreen where there was a memo. There was just a name of the witness, and the address. Even though she was working with a private investigator, most of time she didn’t have to leave out of the office specifically to look for case evidences. The quicker she finished this, the quicker she could return home.

_I’ll be going now, Mum, Dad, Yuma… I’ll visit again with Kotori and Grannie._

After one last glance with a light but sad smile, she picked up her motorcycle helmet and walked away silently.


	2. Septenary Counter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really worried that I might be confusing people... so just a couple of clarifications. 
> 
> The red-light district in general is an area in the city where there is a concentration of adult-theaters. In addition, there's definitely many places for casinos, underground auctions and black markets. I've decided to make this also a place where there are rumours to have a higher criminal rate. In general there are just less resources invested in the security here. Less police activity and less cameras, making it a good place for criminals to hide. 
> 
> Don Thousand, and the Barians do not have their true identity known by the general public. They are known only by their existence on the internet (ie. cyber network). Please think of how when we use certain social media, there is the anonymity that allows users to have a digital mask.

The rain continued to get heavier as the hour passed by. In a rather small noodle shop, a man with tired eyes turned to the small telescreen in the corner. What was showing a sports program suddenly changed to a news report about the recent hacking incident in a chemist shop.

Police are currently investigating. There has been no confirmation but there is suspicion that it could be the work of the criminal group, the Barians.

The man who had just swallowed a mouthful of food almost choked. Next to the bowl of his dinner was a small notebook. He smoothed out the page, eyes sweeping across the lines about what he had found about the Barians.

It was hard to find out where these groups would have originated from, especially further away from the central district. They were considered rogue yet skilled computer experts. It wasn’t confirmed, but the seven different avatars bearing the Barian’s symbol had made many speculate that there were seven of them.

Others have theorized that perhaps they were part of Don Thousand’s followers. Perhaps they were going to revive the civil war about a decade ago. Why else was there bots functioning out of control and attacks on civilians?

He was going to pull out his pen from his pocket, with his hand that wasn’t holding the spoon, until there was a flashing in the sky. Not remembering the weather report saying anything about thunderstorms, he lifted his head up.

Under another flash out on the street of the red-light districts, two figures had passed by the glass door. One of them turned for a moment and the man had almost saw the glint of a glare.

There was a small chill within him, but in the next blinking moment, the two figures had disappeared.

…

… 

Ryoga and Mizael said nothing to each other as they walked in a brisk manner under the terrible weather. A vehicle had passed by and noticing the flashing police siren, both had looked towards the window of a noodle shop. Ryoga knew that neither had gotten injured after escaping from the pharmaceutical shop earlier, but the last thing they wanted was to engage in any more danger. Every time wasted would leave more time for their enemy to track them down.

Within moments, the entered into an apartment block. Around this area, the buildings didn’t have the “electronic modern” look as the other districts, and some doors still had used the normal key locks. Climbing up to the top floor, both entered.

It wasn’t until the door closed that Ryoga finally spoke to the darkened room.

“Did everyone get back safely?” he asked, well aware when he entered that there were others.

“Of course. We were just waiting for you two.” The figure closest to the window moved. “I had been in the middle of a game earlier-“

“Later, Vector.” Durbe’s voice cut him off. With the light from the computer screen in front of him, it was hard to see his eyes from the glare of his glasses. “Rio’s in her room if you’re wondering.”

“Alright” Ryoga let out a small sigh of relief before his face hardened to his general serious look.

“We need to leave here… as quick as possible.” Mizael finally spoke up in an irritated voice, before muttering something about seeing a possible green-eared journalist in a shop nearby.

It was at this point that Gilag had spoken up. “But what about our equipment? There’s not enough – “

He, Alito and Vector had seemed to be the few who weren’t involved in any of the incidents in the past few hours. However, they knew how unwise it would be to not leave themselves vulnerable.

Ryoga raised a hand and the other stopped. “I know, but right now our top priority is to get ourselves out of here. It is Don Thousand again. I know it is him. Mizael, Durbe and I were with Rio in that chemist shop. ”

“Yes. I am fairly sure that the bots were aiming to capture Rio.” Durbe added on without looking up from the screen. “That our identities as the Barian users had not been found out. But… they had their eye on us when we had walked in.”

Only Don Thousand, one of the masterminds in the previous civil war, would have a reason to. After what happened today, Ryoga was more than certain that his enemy’s intentions had not changed.

I need Merag’s powers. You will not understand the importance of her role in my plans. 

Anger had surged within Ryoga again. Not only once, but after four years the mysterious schemer would decide to kidnap his sister again. Judging by the several attempts, it was as though he was going to hunt after her.

“Whatever the case is, it won’t be long before this place is found by him. Don Thousand has followers who can track. We need a place to wait for things to quieten down, before countering. He’s not stopping then I will just have to rip off that digital mask of his.”

“That’s a shame.” Vector replied in a rather casual voice. In the dark, everyone else could still picture the amused smile on his face. “I had quite liked this area.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Ryoga spoke. He noticed the door opening, and the sihloutte of Rio walking into the living room. “You’re free to leave. But…”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of doing that, Nasch.” Vector interrupted his warning about spreading secrets. “ I have my reasons for sticking with you, leader of cell seventeen.”

Ryoga clicked his tongue in response. Clearly, not liking bringing up unpleasant memories by someone he was often irritated by. At this moment, Durbe finally looked up.

“I’ve found several routes.” Durbe said, and that was their cue that it was time to hurry up.

Mizael was one of the first to have finished packing the bare necessities into his bag. Picking up his bag, instead of walking out the door, he stopped in front of the cupboard near his desk. Opening the top drawer, and neatly packaged in plastic was two hard-disks. It was the usual ones you can buy and re-format from the usual computer shop, yet this was probably the one of two copies that contained all the work that he had done with his friend, Kaito Tenjo.

It wasn’t of anything of significance to countering against Don Thousand’s plans, but Mizael didn’t want to think of leaving it behind. Not when Don Thousand’s followers could come at any moment.

Several minutes later, the members of the Barian group had assembled in the living room again. There were a few exchanges about how they were going to be split up, suggested by Rio to avoid looking suspicious. A warning of not making too much of a rukus was given to Alito and Gilag, before the door was opened again.

Ryoga was the last to leave. He gave one last look at the darkened room again. His hand reached towards the wall, and switched on the light. After a short click, the door closed and he descended down the stairs after Durbe, who was following close behind Rio.

Seeing the grey-haired young man putting on his hood to hide his face like the others, Ryoga didn’t want to admit that he felt a twinge of guilt. The actual truth about the Barians was perhaps only three users were really skilled technicians. Durbe was one. Perhaps if he had never gotten mixed into this mess, he wouldn’t be subjected to be on the run. Or being subjected to be accused of causing hacking and terrorism. Perhaps he would have been working “for the good of the public”, like Mizael once was.

“Ryoga. Hurry up!” Rio said, trying not to yell. She and Durbe were the only ones standing in the rain now.

Blinking and pushing the thoughts away, Ryoga stepped out of the apartment to join them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to show a little more of each of the Barians in this part. However, I felt like that would be rather too winding, and lose the flow of the story. I’ll try to describe the ones for each of them in more detail later on while the story moves along.


	3. Ehgze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I really wish that I can be good at coming up with puzzles... or setting a rather frantic situation... 
> 
> This chapter mentions “Iocane”, which is just a fictional name of a fatal poison I decided to use. The effects will be revealed more specifically later, but I had in mind that it would take minutes for fatal consequences if it’s injected via the bloodstream.

Kaito had planned to leave work at the usual time. Since it was Friday, he would have picked up Haruto himself and they would go to the family restaurant just like every week. **  
**

Yet plans were thrown out the window when he had seen the photo. Three teenage boys were looking into the camera, as though they were at some field trip. The background though didn’t look like anywhere around in the neighbourhood. There were few cracks on the wall, and the labels on the door implied that it seemed to be of an old hospital ward room. But more importantly, he couldn’t look away from the blur of a face in the corner. It was slightly blurred, and not very noticeable. But there was no doubt, the shape of the hair and the purple eyes. The blurred figure in the back looked exactly like his missing father, Dr Faker.  

Earlier two of the same boys in the photo had came, frantically reporting about not able to contact their friend. They had ventured into the abandoned hospital, as a “test of courage”. Never did they think of the possibility that one of them would be missing. While another friendlier-looking officer was listening to them talk, Kaito got up from his seat.

Shortly afterwards there was a notification from Thomas. The second-eldest Arclight brother would be able to pick up Haruto for him. He knew that Haruto would be understanding if he wasn’t able to return home tonight. Once he had confirmed for himself whether their father was there or not, he could tell Haruto that they finally had clues about him.

…

…

The photo had been taken from a clinic that was to have been out-of-business for four years now.It wasn’t a surprise that the even the site re-construction seemed to have been abandoned, remaining as a plot of deserted land in the red-light district. The cranes had been moved, but there were still a few construction beams placed in the left wing.

A more realistic side reminded himself that perhaps his father was just passing by some coincidence. Nothing more. But there was no other clue that he could look towards other than this photo.

Entering into the building, it wasn’t long before his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The streets here were darker, without the bright lights as the other parts of the city. The walls looked clean, save for the few medical charts that were peeling off. This place had clinics that still hadn’t replaced the paper posters with telescreens. It was few remaining buildings that had being left behind after the civil war.

He explored the only two floors, his footsteps remaining quiet while stepping over any debris and cracked places. No one was there. Only empty rooms.

Was he being too optimistic? He asked himself when finding himself back in the room closest to the entrance again. Where the photo of the teenagers had been taken.

The only thing he’d managed to find useful was a map plastered on the wall in the same room.

The page showed that it actually had a lower floor. On the far end of the corridor, probably hidden by the construction beams, there would have been a staircase to lead to the basement floor. He had no answer for why they would just decide to design another floor by extending vertically downwards, but it now opened another place for him to check.

He remembered that the door to the basement past the staircase was locked when he had passed by. That would only mean he had to use the lift. The button was already broken, but only took two hands and a construction pipe to wedge a crack.

Peering within, it was then the first time that he used the torchlight from his watch. Peering downwards, he stared for a moment. He was not expecting to see a complete black hole beneath. There was only one floor below the ground according to the map, yet he couldn’t even see the bottom.

This place had suddenly looked like it was much, much more than just a simple abandoned re-construction site. He turned off the flashlight. His eyes shifted towards left and right from where he stood. No one was around. In the corners of the room, there didn’t seem to be any surveillance cameras either.

Steadily, he then grabbed onto the electric elevator’s suspension rope and lowered himself and quietly forced the other elevator door open.

Down in the basement level, the first notable difference Kaito realized was that there was the faint sounds of machines. Light was projected to the corridor from the rooms.

The building was still in use.

Becoming cautious as ever, he kept closer towards the walls to keep his form hidden in the shadows. His dominant right hand remained within his pocket before glimpsing into each of the rooms. There were no beds like in the wards on the ground floor. Instead, a few had desks and locked cabinets almost like an office. Yet as he had ventured further down the corridor, past the staircase, the rooms took a change.

The light was coming from various computer monitors. It was the normal off-the-shelf computer models that one can buy, yet operating on medical devices. In the centre of the rooms there was only a white table. With the lack of windows in the entire floor, these looked more like an autopsy room.

His hand gripped around the thin weapon in his pocket harder. As much as he didn’t like this place by the second, but if it meant that there were clues he needed to proceed further…

He arrived at the end of the corridor. There was only one set of staircase, leading to the door that he had tried to open earlier. The last door was closed. Like all others, there was no lock. Kaito opened the door, his body freezing when his eyes saw a bed with a figure lying on it.

Whoever was lying didn’t even move or stir. Seeing steady rising and falling of their chest in a sleeping state, Kaito walked towards the ward bed. It wasn’t the third missing teenage boy from the photos, but a complete unfamiliar face. However, it was a boy with black hair and violet spikes. His young face seem to show that he was of a similar age to Mihael.

What on earth was a boy doing here in an abandoned clinic?

Kaito would have muttered out loud if it wasn’t for the situation growing more and more bizarre. His eyebrows were furrowed even more as he turned towards the monitor. A cable was extended out, connecting to the bracelet that was around the boy’s left wrist.

It was a health status monitor. The screen had shown the basic information. Compared to the rest of the furniture in the room, the computer was the only thing that didn’t look so out-of-date.

The information showed that this was a person with normal heart-rate and body pressure. With today’s advanced diagnostic tools, it was shown that he didn’t have any diseases or illness either. Reading further, he was 13-years of age. The name though didn’t make sense to him.

**Number 0 - Utopic Zexal.**

That didn’t sound like a name at all. His hand hovered over the mouse for a moment before deciding to access the few icons on the corner. One was the archive icon, possibly for the patient’s health records.

****_58 seconds until timeout… Please input authentication details to login or exit.  
_ **_Username:  
_ ** ****_Password:_

The login screen only meant a dead end. Nothing from the locked cabinets could have given even a possible surname of any operators around here. The other icons didn’t seem to have anything useful, with his limited education in medicine.

There wasn’t anything to do with Dr Faker here. He couldn’t leave the room yet, the responsibility of his profession urging him to at least wake up the teenager. Not when this was nothing like -

A sharp beeping sound came from the machine, slicing into the silence like a knife. Kaito’s eyes didn’t even manage to blink before the screen’s words changed.  

****_Login time expired. Possible attempt for unauthorized access.  
_ **_Loading pre-input client operator commands… Input authentication details to terminate…  
_ ** ****_Liquid GHB injected into patient…_

“What?” Kaito looked around frantically. Why had the machine decided to forcefully injecting more of a prescription-only sleep drug? Just because it login session timed out? There was a click coming from the bracelet around the wrist. The light indicators on the device showed red.

**Preparing to inject Iocane into patient in 240 seconds…**

No words came out, but Kaito clenched his teeth. Grabbing the mouse again, his at the key firmly and quickly onto the other icons on the menu bar. The cursor moved but nothing was changing. The machine had been rigged to also inject fatal poison? As though to challenge the cyber police officer, a counter suddenly showed up on the bottom half of the screen. .

**_3 minutes and 56 seconds_**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the two main characters finally appear in this slow-progressing story. Please note that while I am going to try to keep the characters from going out-of-character as possible, there may be some variations from the anime. It's partially due to their differing experiences in this AU, but I'll still aim to have them retain their core nature.


	4. Ambidexterity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Message in a bottle” is the spell card that Dr Faker gave to Kaito in Zexal anime. The name in this chapter doesn't refer to the card though, since the card game is not going to play a significant large role. 
> 
> "Number S0: Utopic Zexal" is an actual XYZ monster card, but in this case it is just a name label for Yuma. 
> 
> In the city, with the large use of the cyber network, there is bound to be a rise of misuse of robotic appliances, and cyber bullying. Most policemen or investigators around here wouldn't just have the basic physical combat skill, but also be knowledgeable in basic robotics and cyber security. This would also apply to Kaito as an investigator. (The best comparison I can make is to the main characters of Public Security Section 9 of Ghost in the Shell.)

Finding the bracelet gripped tightly around the teenager’s wrist, the next thing that Kaito thought of was to power off the computer entirely. Without the controlling device able to operate, the command wouldn’t be able to be carried out. **  
**

The power cable wasn’t hard to find behind the desktop machine, and he yanked it away. The screen’s lighting faded a little to show that it was on power mode. However the counter hadn’t budged.

In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten that these crucial monitoring machines often had back-up power sources. He dropped the disconnected cable before heading next to the bed and monitor again.

**_3 minutes and 27 seconds…_ **

Clicking his tongue, he looked around for the main hardware device. It was sitting right underneath the table where the monitor was placed. Just in case, the cable connecting to the bracelet was ripped off as well.

The monitor had picked it up on the device disconnection, but the time counter continued to decrement its number. The wireless features of devices was the last thing he needed right now to stop the poison from being injected into the boy.

Waking the other up would do no good at this point. He had already gotten a dose of the sleeping drug, and trying to shake him awake would just be wasting time. He looked over at the bracelet again, trying to weigh other solutions. The red light continued to flash from the indicators, in synch with the counter.

**_3 minutes and 02 seconds…_ **

The only other option would be to remove the battery itself from the central device. Kaio crouched down to drag the large box out. There was a layer of dust over the box, but he ignored it trying to locate the opening mechanic.

Just as he had thought, there was a lock. He didn’t think much of why the area around the locked looked rather spotless, until he realised very faintly against the dark metal surface, there were black characters written in marker.

**Username: Faker  
16 characters present.**

Kaito’s breath hitched to a stop again. The curl of the “F” character and the tail of the “t” character. He had read more than enough times in his youngers years to know that it was the same style as Dr Faker’s. The similar way that he could print underneath his signature.

The question of why his father had decided to write that was pushed aside. If his father had been here, then this boy was likely to be involved as well. He had to make sure this boy was going to live.

Getting up from his crouching position, his fingers hit the keyboard almost viciously to type in “Faker” as the username.His fingers soon halted abruptly. What about the password?

He cursed under his breath as he tried typed various combinations of dates and keywords. He had some ideas, but now at such a crucial time, he was grasping on the few memories he did remember talking with his father. Given how much they had talked about Dr Faker’s research work, he tried a few of the research titles, filling in the dates to make it 16 characters.

Over and over, a whole minute had passed but the same “authentic error” message did not change and the counter hadn’t stopped either.

It didn’t seem reliable likely at all, but Kaito even typed in a few dates as well. His own birthday, Haruto’s or his mother’s.

_**1 minute and 42 seconds…** _

His mind was beginning to draw a blank. What else could there be… something that wouldn’t be something others could guess about. There were only a few that he could think of. There was Haruto’s strange ability, when he had first discovered it when the boy was four. Dr Faker had -

Like the darting speed of an arrow, the realization struck through Kaito. Another password attempt was given, and the he clicked on the login button again. His eyes almost widened as the screen changed it’s words.

**_Authentication verified.  
Terminating commands…_ **

Not exactly trusting the counter, he took the boy’s wrist somewhat of a mix between being careful but hurried manner. The bracelet’s indicator light was now turned off. He gave it a small try and the bracelet came off easily after a simple click on a switch on the side.

It was then that he noticed that there were red, small dots on the wrist. It was like something had punctured into his skin. Flipping the underside of the bracelet, he noticed that there were tiny sharp points.

Of course, he thought to himself. Injection through these needles. And the entire time he’s knocked out cold. He’s probably not able to at all from the drug.

He found himself relaxing his shoulders, as they had gotten stiff without him realizing. He eyed at the monitor again, taking in the silence in the room around him. Gently dropping the boy’s hand back to the mattress, he opened the other icons and archives.

_Messageinabottle._

_Message in a bottle._

Not even Haruto would have known about that. It was as though Dr Faker was leaving it specifically for Kaito. He had hoped that there would be more information, or something that he could understand. At the moment, there was only a page of medical records, a few other reports and a single page with a string of numbers.

All he could do was to copy the files to a USB keychain he had in his pocket. He could look at it later, but for the moment there was the other person. The files told nothing about his family, where his school was.

One would have thought it would have been at the top of the medical records, but they were all empty. The first thing after getting Chris to check would be to search for his identity.

The moment of relief over in an instant, his face hardened into concentration as he peered outside the corridor. The low-hum of the machines from the other rooms sound eerie, making him want to leave even quicker.

Entering back into the room, he pushed the boy’s back to a sitting position. With one arm around his middle, Kaito hoisted him up to carry on one shoulder. He wasn’t exactly light, nor did he seem malnourished, he noted to himself as he began walking out the door.

The door leading up to the ground floor was on the staircase next to it. Kaito reached within his right pocket, to grip his fingers on his weapon again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been vague about the weapon that Kaito has, only because I’m hoping to deliver the element of surprise. Also because it wouldn’t really make TOO much sense if I don’t explain it.


	5. Like Miniluv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haruto's ability is telepathy. Instead of transferring words, think of the communication by sending images of what one sees. One can be better at receiving than transmitting, and this is the case for him. 
> 
> The three laws of robotics can be found on the Wikipedia:   
> 1\. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm   
> 2\. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law .  
> 3\. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. (because robots are reallly expensive)
> 
> The zeroth law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

When he had saw it was Mihael at the entrance waiting and waving at him, Haruto knew that something was holding his brother back at work. Coming back to his senses from the initial surprise, he quickened his pace until he reached the school gate.

“Kaito said that he’ll come home as soon as possible.”Mihael said, knowing that the blue-haired boy would be disappointed. Even though Haruto was trying to distract himself with the painted white lines on the cement road, Mihael knew the feeling all too well when he had been about the same age.

It wasn’t the first time that Haruto had been staying at the Arclight’s apartment. His brother was often not home after his school hours, and he had found himself sitting with the Arclight brother’s during dinner.

It was on days like this, though Kaito wasn’t always there, Haruto was able to taste the fancier homemade cooking that Chris always made. The blue-haired boy had once asked his brother if he could make it. Kaito had attempted to replicate it in their own kitchen, but ended up with a version with differences that Haruto didn’t mind. Though part of him still felt that Chris’ cooking was superior. As usual, he had made sure to take larger bites to be able to take in as much as possible.

Being offered to help him with his homework after dinner, Haruto sat with Mihael in the large living room. Every now and then he would lean back into his seat, before sitting upright again. In his hand, he had held his pencil, and the grip was getting tighter by the hour, as though he could almost squeeze out the words for his composition.

“What do you need to write?” Mihael asked, pushing away a textbook that he was reading earlier.

“We’ve been reading Asimov’s stories in class,” Haruto explained. Mihael remembered that was the fictional book where the three Laws of Robotics had been introduced. Given the fast-pace of technology advancement, he wasn’t even surprise that Haruto was reading such things in class despite his age. “Our teacher wanted us to write about our favourite human and robot interaction and why.”

“I see. Can’t find a favourite one?” the other smiled at the younger boy. Haruto nodded silently before looking up back at him.

“Yeah… What about you, Mihael?”

“Me?” the red-haired boy looked up at the light in the ceiling, trying to remember since he hadn’t really spent much time in reading a lot of them. “It’s been a while. I think the one I remembered most was the one where the zeroth law was added.”

“There’s a zeroth law?” the younger boy leaned forward to listen more curiously. Haruto wondered if any of his classmates would have read about it. If not, that could be something cool to tell about next Monday. 

“Yeah, I don’t remember the names, but in the story there were two robots I think, that had discovered a robot engineer’s plan to develop a dangerous weapon… what was it again… “nuclear intensifier”… I think. A nuclear, mass destruction weapon, at least. At first they couldn’t do anything to stop the man, since that would break the first law of not to harm a human, so Daneel had to add a new law, where robots could not cause harm to humanity. Ahaha, sorry, was there anything you didn’t understand, Haruto?”

Mihael focused his gaze back to Haruto now with a light laugh. Haruto didn’t respond though. From where he was sitting, his body was rather still, and his eyes were focused to something ahead of him directly. .

“Haruto? Are you alright?”

The teenager’s voice was a little louder now. His eyes followed the direction of the boy’s gaze. It was only the wall, which didn’t even have a screen or portrait. At this, Mihael reached his hand to place on Haruto’s shoulder.

“Haruto, Haruto,” he continued, shaking gently. He had heard about this from Thomas and Chris, but this was the first time he had seen the younger boy in such a hypnotic trance. Haruto didn’t respond until about the third time.

The blue-haired boy blinked several moments. His breath was even, but there was somewhat of a wild look on his face, as though he wasn’t quite sure where he was.

“Haruto,” Mihael once more tried again. There was a brief moment of relief washing over him when the other had gripped onto his sleeve, giving some sort of response that he was listening.

“Did you… see something?”

Without explaining, Haruto knew the teenager was referring to his telepathic ability. He was quiet for a moment, staring at the blank blue lines on the paper in front of him. Gradually, he gave slow nods.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mihael began, his voice a little gentler and softer while Haruto edged closer towards his side in his chair. “Or do you want to tell Chris?”

Haruto didn’t seem to have minded talking to him, since he opened his mouth after shaking his head. “No… it’s … I saw I was in a corridor,” he began while lifting his eyes over his left eye. “It’s a long hallway, and there’s rooms with chairs and desks.”

“Like a classroom?”

“No. They’re smaller, like offices.” Haruto replied. “But… there weren’t any windows around. And no one was there… ”

“I see… What else did you see?”

Haruto used his arms to draw a rectangle in the air about three times the size of his head. “I saw a computer about this big. It was in another room without windows. And… I didn’t read it, but…”

“But…?” Mihael spoke up for Haruto to continue.

“I think brother is there…” Haruto finished. “I didn’t see anything afterwards, but it looked scary.”

Compared to his earlier description, he had a more certain tone in his emphasis. Mihael felt that even if he did question it, it wasn’t going to get anywhere.

Haruto’s ability would have been just written off as a hallucination if it wasn’t for Chris telling him and Thomas about Haruto’s telepathic abilities. Chris had said that it wasn’t conveying long sentences or thoughts. It was a mix of receiving words, or images through his left eye, like watching different cartoons on either screens. They were only with someone that the boy had known well, and usually Haruto could hardly place any thoughts of his own to another.

Noticing that the he was beginning to grip his sleeve tighter, Mihael gave Haruto a light pat on his other shoulder. He drew Haruto’s body closer towards himself, giving the younger boy somewhat of a half-hug in the current position they sat around the table.

“Don’t worry,” Mihael said, a natural, caring smile. It seemed obvious that choosing more optimistic words would be more helpful. “Your brother is strong, right? He’s probably not scared. He’ll probably call us and come here as soon as he finishes work.”

Beginning to be convinced by his words, Haruto’s grip was loosening and the general light in his eyes was returning. .

“Why don’t we ask Chris if we can stay up later? So then we can wait for him.”

“Can we?” the boy’s voice perkier now. “Can we ask him now?”

“Yeah,” Mihael laughed. “I don’t think Chris would be that strict. It’s Friday, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably mention at this point, that "Cat's Cradle" and "1984" gave some inspiration for this series. As more is revealed about Don Thousand's plan, hopefully that will show.


	6. Incrementing Legion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to two Barians again, and a small glimpse of what Don Thousand could possibly be like.

Durbe had given directed them each via different directions to the underground warehouse in the coast. The seven of them standing together in an underground train carriage would have looked too odd to be simply a group of young ones hanging out after dark. **  
**

While Mizael had no complaints in taking the longer route, he did not like having travelling with Vector. Keeping about one step away from him, the blonde’s eyes darted left and right to remain focused on his surroundings. The street was getting brighter now, as they were approaching the street-level plaza.

“Hey. We’re being followed.” Mizael’s said in a low voice. From the reflection of the mechanic shop window, there was a small flicker of a shadow from the other side of the road. There was a subtle movement of the man that was sitting by the sidebench.

“Oh? How annoying,” Vector replied, though Mizael was sure the other was smiling. He didn’t sound annoyed in the least.”I didn’t notice at all. Do you know how many?”

“Several…” Mizael answered as they stopped at the lights. No one was on the rooftops. “I don’t think there’s more than five. For now…”

“Oh, even worse. We’re outnumbered” Vector commented back rather quickly. “And if they’ve seen our faces.”

The two didn’t have their masks, in order to prioritise travelling without the police hindering their way. Durbe wasn’t able to estimate how much Don Thousand would have found out about them with his ease of accessing information, but the thought of having their faces being recognised was the last thing Mizael wanted. Vector didn’t say it out loud, but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to let any of these pursuers leave alive tonight.

“There’s an alleyway in the next corner.” Mizael was quick in thinking where to find a change of place.

“Fantastic! Then let’s just split up temporarily there. Those will be taken care of in a jiffy quietly.”

_If only quiet enough,_ Mizael thought to himself as they turned at the opening of the alleyway. The two allowed the shadows from the buildings swallow them up. From several ten or so meters away, what would have been “normal” looking civilians in the red-light district circled around that block to enter into the same realm of shadows with them.

…

…

Mizael’s breath was short, yet his heartbeat remained calm. It wasn’t easy to find someplace to wait and hide in the narrow alleyway, but he relied on the arrangement of the abandoned machine parts and boxes to divert attention to where he was leaning against the wall..

Very soon, footsteps drowned out the car engines from the outer avenue. Two… no, there were three approaching. Mizael’s eyes could not see their faces, but the outline of their body movements were clear as their pacing was coming to a careful pause.

Allowing the first two to pass by where he was hiding, all he needed was a moment before he appeared behind the third man. He raised his hand, with a small object in his hand, was aimed straight at his neck.

There was a grunt escaping out of his throat. Yet before the two others could turn, the third unconscious one was sent with a kick towards one of them.

“Wha - !” One of them reached for his side. As though he knew, Mizael fist aimed straight to his middle. He stood straight upright again when the three bodies had collapsed onto the ground. In his hand, he twirled the object in his hand.

It was _merely_ a pen.

One side with the cap closed, while another had a sharp tip, as though it could write from both ends. It was more than enough for him to use as a weapon to jab at the vital points, just to knock them out.

Mizael squinted his eyes in the dark while squatting down. One of them was wearing a shorter-sleeved jacket. From beneath the helm, he could see the modern electric revolver. They would have looked like just a couple of drug-dealers or thugs around these areas. The only difference, was a single bracelet-like device around their wrists. Though the size was similar, it was certainly not a watch without much of a display attached.

HIs eyes narrowed when there was a glow from the light indicators. There was a beeping sound as the lights blinked red several times.

Footsteps approached at that moment, and Mizael’s head turned.

“Oh, boring….” Vector said. “Looks like they’re already dead”

“What?” Mizael gave him a look as though he was making an inappropriate joke. The hand from Mizael’s victims was dropped limply to the ground as he faced Vector properly.

“Well, soon enough they will be.” Vector shrugged, pointing at the bracelets that continued to have the red lights blinking. “The same thing happened to the ones who followed me. The bracelet triggered something. And now they’re dead, dead, dead!”

Mizael told himself that as much as he didn’t always trust Vector, there was no reason for him to lie as of this moment. Perhaps it was because if they did not meet through Nasch, or Ryoga, the two could have been enemies, as outlaw and police detective. It wasn’t just that he had been a veteran from a juvenile detention centre since his middle school age. The core reason, was probably more related to how Vector found his passion and motivation. The blonde wasn’t even going to ask if he had attempted to bribe or just toyed with the other pursuers from earlier.

“I see…” Mizael tilted his head towards the exit of the street, a cue for them to be on their way again. Such a trigger from the bracelet seemed too well-planned at that timing. If he can’t lure the last one out yet, they’ll just have to pretend they haven’t realize that there was another one watching them this very moment.

“I never knew that Don Thousand would be so low as to just terminate his own followers.”

“Neither did I,” Vector laughed as they stepped into the light again. He didn’t seem to be lying in the least this time with the gleeful gleam in his eyes. “That’s why I like him. He’s very, very cruel, isn't he? It’d be sad if he wasn’t around.”

_Otherwise, how else would the wicked me look so good?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t ship them, but it gave me an impression that Mizael and Vector could be very destructive if they worked together. Mizael is strong, focused and efficient. Vector acts like a troll, but he’s good at reading people and knows EXACTLY what he wants.
> 
> If I don’t give up writing this, I kind of look forward to getting to a part where Vector gets all excited and acts like a troll. 
> 
> Also I kind of wish I could be better at describing fights. I can visualize it in my head but it’s so hard to write it.


	7. The Lowest Quarter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It probably wasn't very apparent. I've tried to imply that Vectro and Nasch were once cell mates in a detention centre. Two other Barians were also with them. Although it's a juvenile detention centre, please make it an exception that in this world it's similar to a real prison.

“Vector and Mizael are still not back yet.” Alito said, turning towards the windows. Now at the coast, the wind outside was stronger and harsher. The rain was almost like arrows hammering onto the ceiling of the warehouse; it was so loud that he felt that he needed to speak louder without his words being drowned out. **  
**

Not too far, Durbe was conversing with Nasch while the two were continuing to stare at two monitors, in front of a temporary desktop. Being prepared for such situation, Durbe hadn’t taken much time to set it up the minute that they had shut the door and ensured no one else had sneaked in.

Gilag had gotten up from the crate that he was sitting on. After telling Nasch that he was going to explore a little, Alito had followed. It seemed that at this time the television wasn’t showing anything of interest to his friend.

“There really isn’t much to see around here though…” He muttered as they passed a few rooms in what seemed to be sleeping quarters previously for workers. Gilag tested the fold-in bed, connected to the wall. Though it was sturdy to hold his weight, it didn’t seem too comfortable. There was no way he was sleeping on one of these tonight.

His eyes scanned over the other bare furniture sitting in the room. The desk didn’t even have an accompanied chair. The glare of the metal surface made the closet seem like it was just a more rectangular crate, fixed atop a safe.

“This looks more like a prison…” Gilag muttered to himself, loud enough for his friend to hear clearly.

“Minus the windows, and the metal wardrobe. ”

“Yeah….”

“Do you think…” Alito noticed the pause in the other’s words. “It would be safer if this was in the detention centre again?”

His taller Barian comrade was referring to the security in the juvenile detention centre they had been sent to before, It had occurred by some chance when they actually had decided to get caught by the police by their own free will.

_“Your cell is this way, Make sure to remember the number correctly.” The guard said. The two followed behind him, while he continued to repeat about how strict they will be on rule-breakers. Gilag hadn’t really been paying attention to where they were walking until Alito suddenly tugged on his arm sharply so he wouldn’t collide into the prison guard._

_“This is cell seventeen.” He opened the door, giving a stern look at the two to not argue as they walked in. “Whoever’s in charge, come here! These are the new inmates. Make sure to tell them the rules.”_

_There were only two others in the cell. The one who was standing turned and walked over. The first thing that the two noticed was his striking dark-blue hair, that reached towards his shoulders. HIs face hardened to a glare just when the guard had left and the door closed._

_“Hi, I’m Alito,” Alito started, wanting to break the ice. He noticed the rather unfriendly look but decided not to comment on it, since he had seen people wanting to look strong, a common thing in the red-light district. He then pointed to his friend. “This is my friend, his name is Gilag. And yours…?”_

_“Nasch. Just call me Nasch.” The other said while sitting down on the bed, closest to the wall. Later on in the future, the two would come to know that it was a mere alias, that his real name was Ryoga Kamishiro._

_“Soooo… what did you do to find yourselves here, hm?” A more seemingly light-hearted voice answered. Gilag turned towards the only other in the cell. With the relaxed posture he had with his two arms at the back of his head, it would have looked like the orange-haired teenager wasn’t at a cell but in his own room._

_“Nothing much, other than betting and fighting in the underground arena.” Alito laughed._

_There was a light hum as the teenager sat up. “Oh?” ths orange-haired teenager sat up. Mild interest in his eyes. “You’re brave enough to go to that part of the city.”_

_“Nah,” Alito grinned. “Gilag and I grew up there.”_

_From the corner of his eye, he saw that Nasch has settled down on his side of the bed simply listening._

_“But from what I’ve heard, you bunch would be able to outrun the Heartland Police easily. What happened?”_

_The two childhood friends looked at each other for a moment before it was Gilag who answered for them._

_“We decided not to,” he answered, “we figured living here is better, since that would be mean there’s a roof with food.”_

_“Only downside is you can’t fight or find much entertainment, I suppose.” Alito added. Just based on what was told to him as the two had arrived, it seemed they wanted these teenagers to spend hours locked in the room just to think when they got bored of talking to each other._

_“Wait, wait, wait” Vector cut in rather quickly, pointing his fingers at both of them “you’re telling me, you and you, just decided to get caught so you have a roof to stay?”_

_“…”_

_Over the silence, Nasch had muttered something about “insane people”, but it was too inaudible to hear with  over the other who suddenly burst out laughing, then rolling onto his side. Awkwardly Alito and Gilag merely stood until he caught his breath back._

_“Ha ha ha, … well then, nice to meet you, here-just-for-food Gilag and Alito. I’m Vector,” he pointed at himself. “Let’s hope that we get along. Just remember to not get caught breaking the rules. Or if you do… blame it on another cell.”_

Alito shrugged, back in their present conversation. “Hm… I guess? With the guards there it won’t be too easy for Don Thousand to find Rio.” Currently he was  bending down to inspect the contents in the safe. The place didn’t look that empty. Whoever had stopped working here, didn’t bother to throw out a bunch of random things.

“Although,” he continued. “I heard that the guards in female prisons are more laxed.“

“How could I forget that Rio would have been put in a different place altogether.” Gilag slapped a palm to his forehead, feeling a bit silly for bringing such a thing up in the first place. “And now that I think about it,  I guess it wouldn’t be much safe either, with Vector.”

Alito couldn’t agree more while gesturing with his hand that they decided to check out the other rooms. “Yeah… I didn’t hate everything there, but sometimes …”

There were times when things just escalated too quickly, that no one could really pinpoint who was the cause of the chaos. Like that one time when it was supposed to be a peaceful free time.

_There was always about 20 minutes where they were allowed to just amuse themselves in the courtyard. Sometimes if the guard was new or more lenient they could quickly buy something from the only shop. Nasch was the one who had went the most frequently, mostly to use the phone to call his friend and family._

_Today was different; two inmates from cell twelve had approached the four with darkening looks. Nasch wasn’t in the mood to have the scarce free time to be “wasted”. Apparently telling the two to “shove off” would have the opposite effect. They continued demanding to “pulverize” Vector for his meddling that got them into trouble._

_“Me? Whatever did I do?”_

_“You!“_

_“What about me?” Vector laughed, his eyes showing hints of mischief._

_Vector’s collar was suddenly grabbed by a fist marred by scars. That was when the guard nearby had yelled over them to break apart._

_“What are you doing? Do you want to run 100 laps AGAIN like this morning?”_

_Nasch was about to curse, as Alito was going to speak up to explain their situation. Only both the latter and Gilag had stopped when they saw the glint of metal under the sun._

_“No, not at all. Sorry, officer.” Vector replied with a mock salute. The one who had grasped onto his collar earlier let go. From the angle where the guard was, they couldn’t see the fork that was pointing at the inmate’s chest. For many around here, a simple kitchen utensil could be used as a weapon._

Up until now, Alito never got around to ask Vector how on earth he had managed to smuggle that fork from the prison’s kitchen. Nor did he ever find out the truth whether that time it really was Vector that riled them up. Speaking of the kitchen, the two had found a door that led to what would be the basement. Though the shelves were empty, Gilag figured that this could be a makeshift pantry.

The two walked back to the room where Durbe was.  Nasch was no longer there. The grey-haired young man was leaning back in his seat, eyes closed though his breath too quick to be sleeping. Ma _ybe tired from staring at the screen for the last few hours,_ Gilag had figured. There was a few clattering sounds from the kitchen, telling them that someone was in the kitchen.

“Aren’t you guys hungry yet?” Rio said, while closing the cupboard under the sink to inspect another. .

As though on cue, there was a groaning sound someone’s stomach. There was a small shuffle of feet while Gilag and Alito had entered the kitchen to offer to help. It looked rather bare, since it had been mere hours since they settled in here.

Seeing Rio though had brought up a question that Alito hadn’t really asked in the past. It wasn’t something that bothered him, and he had wanted to respect Nasch and Merag’s privacy.

“Hey, Rio. What was the reason why Don Thousand is after you?”

Surely, by this time the Kamishiro siblings would be able to trust the other members of the Barians?

Rio closed the cupboard that she was peering into at that moment. “Oh? Ryoga never told you? Sure, though it’s probably easier for me to show you. Let me first get the water running from the tap. “

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was partially inspired from a story I had heard from a friend who had been telling me about different reasons why people go to prison, some are more by free will than others. 
> 
> I was tempted to include more details about the kitchen, but maybe in the next section for this scene. Literature and English were never my strong points at school... and it's always a bit of a struggle for me to decide on how to write things...


	8. Memoria Void

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've noticed in the tags, there's "Original Character(s)". At this moment, I really only just have one that I intend to add to move the plot along, which will be mentioned in this chapter. Mentioned, not introduced, since I don't think it'll be easy to do in just one chapter (might be easier when the time comes). I might link a reference picture when I've worked out his/her design.

Unknown to Haruto and Mihael as they were waiting, Chris had received a call from Kaito just 30 minutes before the blonde had arrived at the doorstep. The sound of the doorbell had Haruto’s sleepy eyes widen suddenly. If it wasn’t because of Mihael’s height, he wouldn’t have caught up with how energetic the blue-haired boy was running down the stairs. **  
**

It wasn’t they had reached near the front entrance that the two younger boys had noticed that Haruto’s brother had someone on his back. It was a stranger, a boy with black and violet bangs.

“Who’s that?” Haruto tilted his head in a curious manner, his voice quieter since he didn’t want to wake him up. .

“Haruto, I’ll answer and talk to you in a moment, alright?” Kaito replied. It was the gentle tone only reserved for his younger brother, despite that he probably was tired from work all day. Chris was already asking Kaito to follow him, and Mihael understood the situation as he watched the only to adults in the room head in the direction of Chris’ workroom at home.

…

…

About five minutes had passed before Kaito had left to find Haruto in the tea parlour. Mihael noticed immediately and smiled at him as he sat down at the table with them.

“I’ll see if Chris needs any help.” Mihael said, though it was more of wanting to give the two Tenjo siblings some time to themselves.

Kaito turned to Haruto shortly when Mihael had left, “So, what did you do at school today?”

“Hm… a lot happened today…” Haruto swung his feet back and forth from his sitting position. It was hard to tell without looking outside that it was almost 12am now. “Oh, we have a new classmate now. She… I mean “they’re” called “Electronica”.”

“Electronica?” Kaito repeated after the name to show that he heard his younger brother’s words. Kids these days had rather strange names…  Whoever this Electronica was seemed to have piqued Haruto’s interest.“Did you become friends with them?”

“I hope so! You see, she … I mean, they’re a robot.” Haruto said. The younger boy was like his other classmates, wanting to take a photo of the robot. “Our teacher said that they wanted to run tests on the robots, and so they put one in our class to see if they could learn from us. So they’re going to sit with us during class and take lessons with us”

Though he was feeling a little tired, Kaito half-listened in a slightly zoned-out manner with a rare smile. Electronica apparently looked like a girl, but they could switch their voice banks to switch between acting like a human boy or girl.

“They didn’t understand all of it, but Electronica knew some of our jokes.”

“I haven’t seen much in the news, “Kaito admitted “,but I did hear that Heartland’s robotics team has been doing more research on the A.I.’s” It did bring him some recollections of his own interests in robotics in the past. The last time he was keeping up with this, they were still researching on A.I.’s drawing accurate-as-possible answers from the internet.

Haruto continued on, about their class watching old sci-fi cult movies, followed by reading Asimov’s stories. Little did the elder know about the vision that his younger brother had seen earlier that evening. His younger brother had gotten up to talking about Mihael’s favourite story before he lifted his hand to muffle his yawn.

“It is very late already.” Kaito said. “You should probably sleep now, even if there is no school tomorrow”

Haruto picked up on the part where Kaito didn’t mention about “going home”.

“Oh, we can sleep over here tonight?”

“Yes, Chris had said so when I called him. Let’s go, Haruto.” Kaito said, holding out his hand for his younger brother. It wasn’t the first night this has happened, and by now there was already a guest room that Haruto would use whenever Kaito had left his job late like tonight.

Though he was perfectly old enough, Kaito still find it pleasant to help his younger brother to bed as it was the few things he can do to take care of him. Now wasn’t exactly the right time though. Just as they had exited out of the bathroom, Mihael was running along the corridor towards them.

“Chris asked you to come to his office.” Mihael said, finally standing in front of them. “The boy.. He’s woken up.”

There was no need for other explanations. “Thanks, I will. You should probably get ready for bed soon too, Mihael.” Kaito gave a nod to Mihael bading him goodnight before he followed behind Haruto to see him to his room first.

…

…

There was a soft click on the door, and Kaito soon found himself within. Chris’ study had the basic equipment that the doctor needed, in particular for a neurologist and a neurosurgeon.

Near the window was the desk and table where Chris would usually sit when he worked at home instead of the hospital. Right in front of the bookshelf was the couch and the coffee table. The teenager that he had seen from the abandoned clinic was sitting on one side, while Chris tilted his head towards the door.

“You’re here.” Chris said as Kaito sat down next to him, expecting him to continue explaining. Chris glanced back at the teenage boy. “So.. you can’t remember your name or age, is that correct?”

The teenager frowned to himself, his eyebrows crossed closer while trying to recall. The first impression that Kaito had was that he seemed like one who wore their emotions on their sleeves.

“Hm… no, I can’t, “ he shook his head dejectedly. “Now that I think about it, I don’t even know what my parents look like. Or where I live… I don’t know if I remember anything about myself. Ha…”

Chris held up a hand, “that’s alright. I was just asking.” He said, not wanting the teenager to worry or panic even though the other seemed much more at ease about it. “It’s a little hard to judge whether you’ve had any sort of physical trauma or head injuries. I think that tomorrow it’d be best to run a MRI scan.”

“Huh?” The other cocked his head to the side, clearly confused.

“What I mean is that we might want to run through a few scans tomorrow to find the cause for the loss of your memories.”

The teenager nodded. Kaito remained rather stiff. This wasn’t exactly what he had imagined he had been listening to when the boy had woken up.

“Wait,” he spoke up, “If you don’t remember anything about yourself… then does the name “Faker” sound familiar?”

The boy didn’t seem to have much of a reaction other than like before. He finally shook his head. “Nope, sorry.”

“Hm…you seem to have no speech problems.”Chris spoke up, as though the mentor was tellng Kaito that he intended to treat this boy like his usual clients.”It’s a little too early to conclude, but it seems likely you might have retrograde amnesia?”

“What amnesia?”

“Retrograde amnesia,” Chris repeated as he leaned forward to study the boy’s reactions. “It refers to the amnesia type where one can’t recall anything before a particular date or memory. It means that your learning abilities are still intact.”

Blue-grey eyes briefly looked into the crimson irises for a moment. The boy nodded, though he really wasn’t sure what to say while he looked at his hands for a moment. Surprisingly, the entire time the boy didn’t seem really wary or scared, just lost when Chris had given his opinion on the matter..

“But for now, try to relax.” Chris said. “You should rest, and as I’ve said, we’ll do a check tomorrow.”

“Ok. That sounds like a good idea… um…”

“You can call me Chris. And this is Kaito, the one who found you and brought you here.” the doctor pointed at the blonde. “It’s a little inconvenient without a name. Is there any alias you want to us to use for now?”

“Um…” he leaned back for a moment before settling with an answer. “Maybe :Yuma”? I’m not really sure if it’s my name, but it was the first thing I had thought of… maybe it was a friend’s name… but it sounds familiar.“

“That would work. Alright then, Yuma it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the OC is "Electronica".
> 
> I realized I didn’t explain about Thomas’ absence in “today”. It kind of feels more natural to explain it when he does make his appearance so I’ll leave it for now. Just know that nothing alarming is happening to him yet. 
> 
> Also, I've been just transferring my written stuff from Tumblr to AO3 here. This is the last chapter that I am currently up to, so the next one will take a while.


	9. Virus Crystallis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter continues on from chapter 7, where Rio will show why Don Thousand could possibly be so interested in her. 
> 
> You can read more about Ice-Nine from "Cat's Cradle". Regarding how people can die from it, according to the book you can simply have a bit of the substance in your fingers. Next, place your fingers near your lips, and every liquid form found in the body would freeze very rapidly. Your heart and system stops, and you have a frozen dead body. 
> 
> I don't know if anyone in the Barian group knows cooking more than others, but let's just assume that they all can. If they can take care of themselves then surely they have a way of getting food. (I guess instant noodles do count).

Alito dragged a chair while watching Rio let the water from the tap rinse out some of the dust that had collected around the sink. Gilag leaned back against the counter, as there was only one stool chair in the kitchen.

Rio placed a small bowl on the counter in the middle of the kitchen. It was half-filled with crystal tap water, with a small knife on her hand.

“Pay attention, now. I’m only going to show this once.”

Taking a deep breath, she lifted her hands over the water in the bowl, the sharp end of the knife close to the side of her pinky finger.

Both Alito and Gilag’s eyes widened. Before any of them could cry out in surprise, a drop of blood fell into the water. Rio drew her hand immediately. The surface of the water was disrupted, before cracking sounds were heard. In less than a second, the water surface was completely blurry instead of the transparent colour from earlier.

“Huh?” Alito leaned forward in a dumbfounded manner, mirroring Gilag’s face. With the hand that didn’t have the small cut, Rio lifted the bowl and turned it upside down in the air. Not a drop of water fell out.

At this Gilag reached his hand out to take the bowl. There was a slightly bemused expression on Rio’s eyes while the tallest Barian used his knuckles to knock onto the inside of the bowl.

“What? It’s ice? It’s turned into ice?”

“Exactly.” Rio smiled. “That’s what Don Thousand is most likely after. I have the power of being able to turn a body of water into ice, using drops from my blood.”

The two men thought back to the time when Nasch had shown a sliver of panic in his eyes, a few months ago. At that time it seemed like Rio had white blood disease of sorts.

“Wait, wait. So it just turns into regular ice?”

Rio had taken back the bowl of ice at this moment, placing it within a stove. ”No, not regular ice. It has a few other properties.” Half-filling the stove with water and turning it on, they immediately realized that she was heating the bowl of ice, probably to melt it.

“I managed to find this pressure cooker just now. So heating up rice should be handy. Anyway, you know of Ice-nine from the book “Cat's Cradle”?”

“I … don't read much fiction.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, in the book there is the mention of a chemical weapon called “ice-nine”, developed by a scientist. A small quantity of this ice can be dropped into a pool, or the sea or some form of water. In almost an instant it would turn into ice, by rapidly rearranging the water into a lattice structure.”

Rio paused for a moment to adjust the settings on the stove. The pressure cooker had a temperature sensor, and there was a small panel where it displayed the temperature and time.

“Anyway. Ice-nine’s melting point is at 45.8 degrees Celsius. Which means that at room temperature… or even on a hot day, it's going to remain as ice.”

There was a loud hiss from the pressure cooker, and white steam was being spit out. The lid was taken off carefully to avoid burning any of her fingers. Seeing Rio beckoning Alito and Gilag peered over to see.

When the white mist had faded, they saw that the bowl was sitting innocently in the heated stove. The almost boiled water below was bubbling furiously, However, within the bowl, the white ice hadn’t even changed its previous.

Alito’s jaw dropped and reached his hand forward. “Hey, hey, it’s still hot.” Rio swatted his hand away, before turning the stove off. “As I said earlier, “ice-nine” doesn’t melt into water until it’s above 45.8 degrees. This here is similar.”

“Similar? Not the same?”

“No, Gilag. I’ve only tried testing once in an incinerator. Just for curiousity, of course. Under the normal sea-level air pressure, it was… 103 degrees celcius. ” She let the infomation sink in for a moment, before switching to a chirpier voice..

“Anyway, we should probably start cooking. I’m famished. I know for one thing the others are probably not going to cook tonight.”

The other two couldn’t disagree and started moving, but not before giving a lingering look at the bowl of water, left there to cool for a while. Rio hadn’t seen that look very often, since the number of people who knew of her abilities could be counted with her two hands.

“You’re wondering about why Don Thousand would be after it, or what is useful about it, right?”

Gilag almost jumped from where he was taking out the knife set and chopping board. Alito at that moment, had just returned from the other room, with a bag of the food supplies they had brought a few hours prior.

“Well, I was more wondering how many of us know about this. Though I suppose I am curious... “

“Maybe you could freeze the water supplies?” Gilag wondered out loud, thinking about the few things from war history that he learnt about.

“To answer your first question, Durbe knows. I’m not sure if Ryoga has told Mizael or Vector.”

  
The three had now gathered around the counter. Alito was doing the peeling of a couple of onions, handing it to Gilag who was chopping with one eye closed. Rio was pouring out the water to use the pressure cooker for cooking rice.

“Also, Gilag is probably correct on that. I don’t know if Don Thousand wants it for other uses. I’ve not really tried anything more than what I did earlier… but I suppose you could… immobilize military vehicles? Durbe said that some still use liquid hydrocarbons mixed with water. The other one... “

It was the first time that the rather headstrong woman had furrowed her eyes just a little. Gilag’s other eye peeked open for a moment, showing a bit red from the onion. The woman didn’t face the while she closed the lid of the pressure cooker, this time setting it properly for cooking purposes.

“This is just a theory, but… if someone was to take a piece of this,” she held up her hand. There was a thin red line where she had made her cut. “I have a feeling it won’t take long for their insides to freeze.”

_A large portion of the human body was water._

They didn’t need any clarification about completely frozen dead bodies there.

“It’s ok, you won’t do such a thing.” Alito broke the awkward silence. Gilag followed up on his response, just as Alito had shoved another onion towards him. “Knowing Nasch, he wouldn’t have a sister who would do such a thing.”

Rio showed her appreciation through a playful smile on her face. “Hey, stop always relating me to my brash brother.”

At that moment in time, noise of metal scraping against metal could be heard. All three heads lifted towards the doorway. In the larger room in the warehouse, Durbe had also twisted his upper torso.

“We’re here!” The singsong voice was followed by a orange-hair peeking through the door, confirming it was Vector. Durbe was now talking to someone on the other side, which the three could only think it was either Mizael or Nasch.  

“Oh, making dinner? I haven’t had anything to eat either. What are you making?”

“Just some vegetables in stir fry.” Gilag shrugged, finding that there was oil and some sauce materials in the plastic bags. “Though I suppose we can grill some as well, but it’ll take time. And… hm… oh hey, there’s bacon.”

Vector clapped his hands in approval just as the other door had opened. “Awesome! Oh, Nasch, there you are! What great timing. Dinner seems to be soon.”

Ryoga gave a slight scowl towards the orange-haired man while peeling off his gloves, which were stained with darkened oil. Rio recalled something about having to manually fix the reservoir for the bathroom hot water.

“Oh, need a joke?” Vector laughed, being one of the two who could possibly completely unfazed by his friendly look. ” Here, if I have ten pieces of bacon, and you want two, how many do I have left?”

Mizael shook his head, and collapsed on the chair next to Durbe. If the silver-haired one didn’t know better, Mizael would have looked like he had to deal with a bunch of kids all day.

  
“TEN!” Vector suddenly cut in, just as Ryoga had opened his mouth to make a threat. “Because you’re not getting any! Get it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose it's not the most interesting chapter if one was looking for action, yet must be explained to give background information. I'm still trying to play around with how Vector talks or trolls others, and most certainly up for suggestions.
> 
> I'm kind of curious what others would think Don Thousand could use this power for.


	10. The Widening Gyre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this AU setting, private investigation agencies (such as where Akari and Droite) work at, are able to exchange and transfer case information with the public police. There are some that cannot be accessed by the former, but these are mostly related to government-related types. 
> 
> Regarding Akari's specialty in software and computers, if you want a more niche explanation: consider for now that on top of the general basics everyone learns in programming class, she has extensive knowledge on algorithms and how A.I.'s use certain methods to make decisions. (I'll explain a little more in detail later on regarding the latter if it becomes significant in the story).
> 
> And remember when Haruto was talking about learning the 3 laws of robotics? Let’s see how many a robot can break in the span of 5 minutes.

Unlike his manner of professionalism over the phone, the journalist’s voice kept trailing off when he was looking outside towards window of where the shop that she was conversing with him. Akari even checked for herself when she saw his eyes drifting yet again. There was nothing out there, save just a few walking bots and pedestrians. **  
**

Other than some few vague sentences, all Akari could do to ask in a polite but curt manner if she could take a few photos of the notes that he had. Adding on to her frustration, the notes were all taken on his pad, leaving her having to just decipher his messy writing later on. Who still used paper these days with everything digital backed into the cloud? There was no way of recovering whatever was marked on there if it was suddenly engulfed in flames, or smeared by paint.

“If they are involved, it can’t just be the Barians,” The journalist said, in the brief moment that Akari had his attention back again. “Being in this profession for so long… more than fifteen years… Don Thousand was involved… You can recognise what a follower of Don Thousand would look like. See, right on - “

Their conversation was cut short at that moment when there wa a sudden ring on his phone. It was an unknown number. His face seemed to have gotten a few shades paler, whiter than his notepad. He picked up the call, saying “yes” a few times. Each one fainter than the other like something was lodged into his throat. Akari was looking at him expectantly but his eyes were trailing all around the shop now, before he stood up from his seat.

“I must go now, sincere apologies about this.” The man had said hurriedly. “Perhaps some other time…”

“Wait!” Akari called as she bolted up from her seat, but the man had already rushed out into the rain, not even putting on his jacket around his arm. And to think that he was the one who had called her and her partner to look into this!

Running a hand through her hair, she huffed before leaving to get home for dinner.

…

…

Akari usually started the morning with coffee, as soon as she arrived at the office. Today, she found that Droite had arrived first.

“Morning.” she dropped her motorcycle keys onto her desk before collapsing onto her side of the office. Unlike Droite’s, Akari’s had two extra computer monitors, and much less documents sitting on top. The black-haired woman who was being addressed gave small hints of a smile.

“Same to you.” she said while checking the time her phone. That probably means they were going to be expecting someone coming in today. “You look happy, despite messaging me before about the journalist from yesterday.”

“Yeah, my grandmother made my favourite food. Any new agendas or plans for today?”

“Yes. You remember my friend Gauche?” Droite answered over the usual sounds that followed the start of their workday happened. The computers turning on. The setting up of the air conditioner, soon followed by the repeated clicks for voicemail and email.

Akari’s answer was a short affirmative “yes”. She had only met him once, as Droite’s old colleague, when the other woman was working as a security police. He seemed to be about their same age, yet she hadn’t seen someone that passionate about heading to apprehending criminals on the run.

“I’ve looked over what you sent to me last night, about one of the witnesses at the recent Barian incidents. Gauche is also working on the same cases in the police department, and said that we can pool information together.” she glanced once more at the time. “He’s coming over in about an hour.”

Akari gave a light hum to acknowledge, and there was a small alerting sound from the bell. Someone was outside the office building. Any clients would have to be let in by the office occupiers themselves to enter.

“Clients already at this time?” Akari leaned back on her seat as Droite opened up to check through the visual transceiver.

“Seems so, and an unfamiliar one.” the other woman muttered. “Though it seems more like they had sent an errand bot.” Whoever it was, they weren’t exactly comfortable with showing themselves. The last time that had happened was with a lady that was hiding in her home in fear, before the stalker had been apprehended. At the very least, one didn’t have to always keep a professional and polite manner when talking with a robot.

Akari turned back to her own desk, deciding that she should just focus on her own work. She can leave Droite to do the talking, as the one who actually had more experience in this field. Previously, Akari was nothing more than a researcher in robotics and software engineering. Given with the high use of media and technology, her skills proved to be capable of finding traces of criminal activities.Every once in a while, there’d be more trouble, but it was a more stable job than having to think about what to do after a research contract has ended.

The first thing she had focused on sorting through, was the recorded conversation with the man from yesterday. The first was the notes to go through. It seemed to be of a rather new notebook, and yet there were already smudges and stains blemishing on the edges.

Zooming in a little, she squinted a little at the minute handwriting. There were a few pages on Barians, written in black ink. There were a few in blue. Those pages had a large “Hexea” marked as the topic title. She raised her eyebrows for a moment at whatever the word that meant. And seemingly it didn’t seem to show any results related to any of the recent cyber security incidents either.

 _Was it related to Don Thousand?_ Akari leaned back into her seat. It left the question of what keywords she should use to search. It could send her looking through meaningless rumours on forum sites or to actual records of past articles from the historical museum.

“Hm… odd,“ Droite’s voice broke Akari’s thoughts. “Did that robot still hasn’t arrived, Did it get lost?”

Indeed, already 10 or so minutes had passed. Their office sat on the 2nd floor, the not-so-crowded elevator would not have taken more than two minutes at this early in the morning. There was no way to miss the signals on the walls either.

A faulty robot? Even so, Akari knew very well that the errors that an A.I. carrying commands would be much different from a human’s logic.

“That shouldn’t… ” Akari’s voice had trailed off at that point, but Droite had picked up what she had meant. Being the one more experienced in the field and extra-cautious, she raised her hand as both women faced the door.

No sounds could be heard, until there was a soft ring of the door bell. Every office had one, when someone without the actual electronic key password wanted to enter.

“Come in,” Droite tailored to her professional tone. “The door is not locked.”

The door slid to the side automatically, and in walked the figure that Droite had seen through the camera had shown. At a glance it seemed a girl. Though on a closer inspection, it was more of a figure of a child with longer hair than a typical boy. With thin artificial limbs of the size of an elementary student, the robot had walked in.

These faces are becoming more and more realistic and human-like, Akari commented. If it wasn’t for the ball-jointed limbs, it would have been difficult to tell that the fluid movements did not belong to a human.  

“Thank you, detective” the robot said in a perky voice.

There was another whirling sound behind it as the door slid closed again, before the robot had twisted its head just a small angle. By this time, Akari’s full attention was on it. Robots were able to communicate, but the facial movement seemed far more expressive than any of the ones she had encountered before.

Droite cleared her throat. “You can tell us what your operator has sent us here for now.” It would have sounded perhaps impolite without the word “please”. But this wasn’t human, it was the norm to use the general flat tone anyone would use like voice commands to a machine.

The crack of a grin grew a tad wider on the youthful face. Akari reminded herself as she looked at the robotic joints that this was a robot, not a mischievous brat. “Operator? Sorry? What do you mean?” the head tilted more.

“Your operator. You had said that you were sent on behalf to consult about a case, did you not?” the dark-haired woman said, emphasizing on each word slowly compared to last time.

“Oh. Sorry, that was a lie.” the robot laughed, not apologetic in the least. It was at this moment that it had lifted its hands away from the pants pocket, like surrendering towards Droite who was pointing out the revolver towards it. “I’m here for a case. The one that you had picked up on yesterday, I believe. You’ve made a mistake. ”

“Answer my question first.” Droite’s eyes were narrowed in concentration at her target. “ _What_ are you?”

“A robot. Made of plastic and metal.” The unfaltering smile seemed to be like a challenge for Droite to pull the trigger. It lifted its arms a little wider. From the wrist, Akari caught the glimpse of the logo of the Heartland Robotics research team. It was one of the standard bots. “My model ELCT3405.”

“A bot talking in such a manner?” Droite’s voice hardened to a warning, the ends of her thumb brushing over the trigger-release button. “You think-”

Akari, who hadn’t been in the view of the other two, had suddenly sprang forward two steps. Her hand grabbed around the neck of the bot as her knee impacted collided into the midsection. The robot was knocked off balance and the two fell forwards to the ground, but Akari’s other arm shot out. Her palm burned when it scraped the carpet but she kept her in a superior position over the toppled robot.

The artificial body rebounded up for a fraction, but she dug her knee into the lower back of the robot, pressing it further into the ground.

The woman’s fingers grabbed aside the hair at the back, to look for the electronic port. There was a glisten of silver beneath the hair. And in the next moment the robot’s head whipped around completely around the other way. The face plastered with the same gleeful smile twisted completely around was almost like a demented doll from a horror film.. It opened its mouth, speaking almost audible like a whisper.

“And… boom.”

A deafening, loud bang exploded in Akari’s right ear. A hot, heavy force sent her off the floor. Her back crashed into something, knocking the air out of her lungs.

“Akari!”

Someone called out. She could barely make out Droite’s voice. Uncurling herself, she clenched her teeth while sitting up to see heavy smoke in the room. The desk that Droite had sat was behind her, the thing that she had collided into.

With pain in her side, Akari pushed herself up. Droite did the same. In the corner where Akari’s desk was, the robot was standing where her desk was, with a short white cable extending from its neck to the monitor.

From the twisted angle of the head sitting on top of the shoulders, its eyes acting as cameras that were focused on the two women.

“You’ve gotten onto a case irrelevant to you both… “ it said, the voice was getting more and more high-pitched. The pupils were glowing red, like a forewarning. “Even investigators shouldn’t take intellectual property that is irrelevant.”

Akari darted forward, but the distance didn’t close. Someone grabbed from the back of her dress shirt. She couldn’t see Droite’s face as two collided into the glass of the large window. Glass shattered and the two fell through. Shards of glass flew everywhere in the midst of the smoke. The last laugh that the robot had was burned in both women’s mind before there was a sudden explosion again.

Droite’s hand grabbed onto the edge of the window sill to keep the two from falling. Seeing how she was struggling to keep both of them up from falling to the ground. Just in time, Akari’s hand grabbed onto the other. Smoke continued to continue to sliver out from the broken window, climbing up like snakes. Over the sounds of the fire Akari strained to hear if there was anything else coming from the office.

Down below in the street, there was yells and frantic murmurs from the pedestrians. Over the distance she could hear the sirens.

…

…

15 minutes felt like hours before help had came to get the two female investigators down. Akari didn’t cry out loud, but her face showed how her arm screamed in relief. It was thanks to the fire brigade that had put out the remaining fire. The fire brigade members walked through the corridor, with the women following close behind as they stepped through the second floor, back to their office door.

The half closest to the door and Akari’s usual workbench was completely destroyed. She didn’t use vulgar language, but she cursed as she saw that the harddisks had been heated in the fire. If it wasn’t for the Droite kneeling over the broken parts of the self-destructed robot, the other woman would have perhaps tried to swing the limbs towards the wall in frustration.

The blasted thing had made sure that all the devices, her camera, audio recorder and computer all were crisped. All of them contained her only copies of yesterday’s interview.

“The fire alarms and sprinklers were switched off with an unknown authority key…” Droite muttered to herself. Had it been the work of the robot? If she didn’t know what was fiction, she would have thought it was a human concious within a robot shell. “Hey, Akari, how long would it take a robot to decrypt the security passwords around here?”

Her partner didn’t answer, as Akari was typing viciously on her phone with a look of absolute rage.

“You said something?”

“I’m asking, if it was possible for the robot to have turned off the fire sprinklers while we were waiting for it to come up. Right before it decided to set explosives right at our door.”

“I don’t know,” Akari huffed. Droite knew that she was annoyed over the fact that her arms and hip were hurting, and the unrecoverable lost information. “Hacking isn’t my specialty” She held out her phone for the other to see. “Anyway, I’ve found the model.”

On the screen , illuminated was a bright picture sitting on the right-hand corner of a news article. A new crack was running across the screen, but the face image was undisturbed. It was the same robot, standing in front of a building among a few other students. Without the pale ball-joint limbs, it would have looked just like the other children.

Right underneath were several words as the caption   **Heartland’s newest A.I. undergoing tests, Electronica.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At a glance, if Electronica really was a robot, I guess it'd be weird for anyone to design such an unorthodox robot, that's specifically stopping Droite and Akari from researching about the Barians or Don Thousand. So there's definitely a reason for it.
> 
> So I think I noticed a problem… I do have a bit too much monologue sometimes, where the characters steps through their thought process. It probably sounds a little too dry at times. Apologies… I can only hope that if I consistently continue writing that it’ll improve over time.


	11. Psychological Redrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is where the psychological violence becomes involved. Imagine no longer needing to worry about setting a criminal free, with the uncertainty that they would re-commit the same crimes. If their mind is like nothing more than a pre-schooler, you can easily influence them. 
> 
> Because this is in a futuristic city, I have decided to make that the medical diagnosis rather advanced. Please make it an exception that with the MRI scans and a few other diagnostic tools, Chris was able to have machines to gives estimations. By all means, there will be some discrepancy, but one can get good relative measurements. 
> 
> “Redrum” is the word used by Stephen King in “The Shining”, backwards for “Murder”.

Sitting around at the table for breakfast, Chris and Kaito did not exchange words but the same two words had came to mind, in describing Yuma: clueless and childish.   **  
**

In just a matter of 15 minutes, Yuma had shown that he didn’t know how to use the room’s light adjustment switch, and he barely knew any of the subjects that Mihael has at school.

Kaito couldn’t even be bothered to even huff as the boy almost choked from eating too fast during breakfast. As though not learning from that, he continued talking to Haruto about the cartoons the blue-haired boy liked to watch.

At the very least, he hasn’t shown knowledge gaps in the basic activities, Chris thought to himself while Mihael was offering a glass of water. With his profession, he didn’t often get the chance to witness his younger brother talking to someone of his age, let alone with such interest.

“Thanks. Uh…” Yuma had forgotten his name again when taking the glass of water.

“Mihael.” the boy reminded him, not offended.

“Mihael,” Yuma said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m not that great that catching onto names. But, I’ll make sure to remember next time.”

The boy asked little questions about the apartment. He did have a eye of curiosity whenever he saw the younger siblings (Mihael and Haruto) mentioning about what they were doing today. Apparently there was a third Arclight brother, said to be coming back later in the afternoon.

“His name is Thomas.”

“So why doesn’t he live here?”

“He usually does, it’s just that he’s currently away on a live tour. He’s an actor and singer, you see.” Unfortunately Mihael didn’t have many updated photos of his brother on his phone, so Yuma would just have to see for himself what the second eldest brother was like when he arrived later in the afternoon. While it wouldn’t be hard to search online… for the moment there was something else more important.

“Yuma.” Chris spoke as he placed his pair of chopsticks down. It was Mihael’s turn to wash the dishes. “No need to rush, but shortly after this, you, Kaito and I will go to the hospital that I work at.”

…

…

The hospital was never pleasant for Kaito, probably even more so when he thought about the times when Haruto was sick. Or whenever he had to come for a check-up. The blonde-haired man ignored the bright, sunny weather outside the hospital windows, his eyes reading through the lists of names on his phone.

It was the same black model all public police officers had for work purposes. The indicator on the top screen showed that the ringtone was muted to respect the quiet in the corridors. The majority of the screen illuminated to show the browser, though the heartland icon with a gear showed that Kaito was currently browsing on the protected wireless network reserved for the public security division.

Scrolling over the three pages, on the search list for “Yuma” as the key name, nothing really showed up of a right age. Photo recognition wouldn’t be too hard if the kid had used social media. Though the basic searches from the last two years proved to have found nothing. He even did a search of Mihael and a few random other kids just to make sure that the searcher algorithm was working properly.

Fed up with the fruitless search and waiting, Kaito leaned back onto his seat. It would have perhaps been easier if he could ask someone from the forensic department to do some DNA analysis. But he didn’t know anyone from there, and without connections they wouldn’t just simply do it without a proper case. Analysing tests cost money, and thus always reserved for actual cases.

The image of the monitor screen in that abandoned clinic burned into his mind. Very rarely he liked to rely on just pure instinct, but it seemed a better idea to see what he can find out from this boy and how his father was involved.

The device in his hand vibrated, and he picked the call.

“Tenjo speaking.”

“Oh, Kaito,” Gauche’s voice matched the weather.” That was quick. You’re not busy?”

“Not as of this minute. What do you need?” Kaito’s tone would have perhaps sounded rather too blunt, but Gauche didn’t seem that bothered as he gave a small chuckle. A little quieter, meaning that he was a  bit uneasy.

“I was just dropping by Droite’s office.” Kaito’s eyes showed mild interest in hearing about their old collegae. “She’s ran into a… let’s say… unpredicted trouble, leaving her office in a mess. I’m thinking of sending some of what she told me over to you to check. It could be a case itself, she said.”

“Email it.” Kaito replied, “I’ll take a look in my own time.”

“Droite gives her thanks.” Gauche said.

“Alright,” Kaito lifted his eyes just when the door from the corridor had opened and Chris walked out. “Talk to you later.”

Right after, Yuma walked out, pressing one of his hands towards his head. His eyes were just confused, not in pain. The crimson irises lingered back with curiousity on the scanner machines before Chris had gotten his attention again.

“Yuma, Kaito or I let you know when the results are compiled properly.” Chris said, with the reassuring smile of a doctor. If he noticed Kaito’s eyes narrowing by a fraction. “I’d like to give a check-up for Kaito while he’s here anyway. Why don’t you take a walk around the courtyard downstairs in the meantime?”

“Eh? Kaito’s injured?”

Yuma sent a worried glance at Kaito, who suppressed the temptation to say that the boy should worry about himself first.

“No, not at all. Just doing a harmless check-up. It’s good to do it frequently to detect any problems early.“ Yuma easily bought the partial lie from Chris, not realizing his true intentions. After giving some directions he turned.  

“Let’s talk inside.” Chris said after Yuma had waved and disappeared around the corner of the stairs. He wasn’t stating the obvious, but making a point to the younger to save his questions later when it was just the two of them.

Kaito followed Chris into the room. More than two thirds of it was divided on the other side by a glass wall and window. On the other side of the glass door was the scanner machines. One for lying down and doing the complete MRI scan. On this observation side, there was the general desk where the operating machines were. He couldn’t be bothered to glance at the status, but the words “results” were large enough to be seen. Behind them the automatic door finally slid shut..

“Now are you able to talk?” he pressed a little impatiently, as the two men had sat on the same side of the desk.

“Yes. Firstly, where did you find him?”

“I told you it was related to a case. Must I tell you more?”

Chris’ face remained dead serious. He shifted briefly to face the observation computer, pulling up a graph. It contained several copies of the scans, presumably all from Yuma. Kaito couldn’t tell anything from it, but the long-haired one continued on.

“Yes, I know that’s information that can’t be simply shared, but see if this sounds odd enough. The results suggest that Yuma has his memory wiped.”

“Wiped?” Kaito echoed. Not simply lost, but done intentionally?

“I’ve only seen if very few times, but I’m certain that his brain scans shows that there’s been symptoms of electric shocks, to destroy the inner memory. It’s done in a very clean way, that’s only possible by standard brainwashing methods.”

_Standard brainwashing._

Chris’ last few words hit like stone. Kaito stared intensely at the grey scans, trying to strain his mind to think of anything that he had missed the previous night.

“I found him in an abandoned clinic. There was no one else there, and he wasn’t even awake.”

“… Alright. I don’t know the details of what you saw. But if you didn’t have problems with bringing him to where Haruto and Mihael were, you obviously concluded that he wasn’t a criminal.”

“I’m not saing that he’s definitely not able to be a law-breaker,” Kaito continued on, remembering which district he had found the boy. “ but under the law, regardless of what crimes minors are found guilty of, they wouldn’t have a memory wipe as a punishment.”

It wasn’t of Kaito’s field of matter, but all apprentice police investigators would have been told at some point. There was execution reserved as the most severe punishment in prisons. That was needed was carefully planted electric shocks to the brain. It was the most effective and least harmful. The criminal’s memories would be completely wiped, like a blank slate, that they would have ot learn their alphabet again. Of course, this would be kept from the public, as the ultimate power to reduce a criminal to as powerless as a child.

Thus, such practice shouldn’t be possible outside of the prison centre..

“What also doesn’t add up is that Yuma does not act like his memory is completely wiped. I had thought it was just simply he has no recollection of events revolving around himself. But standard brainwashing reduces a man to have forgotten everything even from elementary grade one. .”

The blonde-haired one said nothing but Chris knew that Kaito was thinking the same thing at that moment.

“It would have taken perhaps a year or so to get to the level that he’s able to talk with any of us like that. You’re the investigator here. In your honest opinion, Kaito, what are your thoughts?”

“I … “ Kaito leaned back into the chair, his eyes furrowed.

…

…

Chris had other appointments to attend to for the rest of the day. Thus, Kaito had bade him goodbye at the office and headed downstairs to where Yuma would be. Theories raced through his mind as he passed by others.

Mizael had once said that most cases related to minors were often influence from an adult. Even in the red-light district. Thus their punishments were never beyond being locked up in cells and put through hours and hours of boring drills.  

Then was the question of how much did Yuma really know. His extent of his maturity in socializing seemed too childish for his age, yet too much for one supposedly handicapped. .

He walked out to the sunlight in the back courtyard. It was early in the morning, at this time most of the people here had the hospital patient uniform, or the staff clothing. He searched around for a head the violet-coloured bangs, which should have been easy to spot, but…

Where did that kid go?

“Kaito!!”

He whipped his head upwards at the loud call. In the west wing building, there was a telescreen from the second to third floor. It was currently showing the news of Mr Heartland’s face in the news, with the expected weather in the right corner.

He had to stop his jaw from dropping. There on top was Yuma standing on top of the telescreen. How the boy was able to wave so enthusiastically without a fear in the world.

“GET DOWN FROM THERE!”

Kaito yelled on reflex. The happy smile was wiped off on Yuma’s face, and the boy quickly scrambled off. He opened his mouth, realizing his mistake that it might be harder to come down, but Yuma had grabbed onto the pole like he knew exactly what he was doing.

With ease, the boy had slid a fraction down the pole and easily found his footing on the window sill. Immediately he dropped down to the second floor’s window sill, before landing onto the grass with a small tumble.

No yells, nor groans of pain when he stood up. There was merely an embarrassed and sorry look on his face while he walked over. He couldn’t believe what he just witnessed, such that he completely didn’t notice the rather annoyed look the nurse close by had given to him for yelling in the quiet place.

“What the heck were you thinking climbing up there?” Kaito’s voice was low, causing the other boy to gulp.

“I guess I like high places?” Yuma laughed uneasily. “It wasn’t much trouble getting back down, since I just remembered how I had climbed up.”

The other wanted to ask whether he had remembered anything, like having being taught acrobatics or parkour. It wasn’t uncommon for a kid in the red-light district to pick these up.

“Um.. Kaito, are you ok?”

Kaito blinked, coming back to the present. He gently pried away Yuma’s smaller hand that had been waving in the air in front of his face. “Aren’t you worried, or upset about losing your memories?”

Yuma blinked, finding interest suddenly in his shoes. They were ones borrowed from Mihael, who was the same height as he was. “I… I don’t know. I suppose I should… But I don’t know what it’s like to have memories.”

“… I guess not,” Kaito answered back awkwardly. The better part of his conscious felt like he was misleading the youth, as though implying that it was possible for him to retrieve. When he knew exactly the truth, that seemed like the most difficult thing to tell the teenager.

“If they do come back, it would be good.… But Chris said that I’d have to just have to wait and see,” Yuma’s voice suddenly sounded more livelier and hopeful again while looking into Kaito’s blue-grey eyes. “Thanks for helping me. Sorry, I didn’t get to say it. Mihael told me that you were the one who had found me, right?”

It wasn’t easy not to speak what he really wanted to say, or have his eyebrows furrow in frustration.

“…It’s nothing… ” he replied quickly before turning abruptly. The shadow on the ground next to his own followed along as the two entered back into the corridor of the hospital building again. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even gotten a chance to talk to the kid about the condition he had found him in. If Yuma was lying about his cluelessness about the clinic, this 13-year-old was certainly no normal actor. “But, I do have a few questions to ask you.”

“Sure! If it’s anything I can answer.”

 

“Good. Let’s find somewhere to sit first, since this may take a while.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder, what would have been a better choice of words (if any) to say to someone who's hopeful to regain their memories. Only that the truth is it's near impossible. And also there's the question why anyone would bother wiping this hyper kid's memory in the first place. 
> 
> One other thing I would like to add is that while Yuma is somewhat of an empty person (with large chunks of his identity missing), I don't plan to make him emotionless. I've seen that quite often in other media, but I am hoping that Yuma would be able to search for his own self without always using the "I have to find my memories to regain myself tactic".


	12. Black Digital Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even for police, I have made it so that depending on which department you are in you may have limited access to information. It's not just to handicap the characters too much, but I would assume that you wouldn't want all security police to have all information. 
> 
> Please assume that phones of the current setting have been improved that they are able to handle data transfer a lot quicker than the current smartphones we use, and that it can run multi-processes better as well.

Along the way out of the hospital, Yuma followed Kaito quietly manoeuvring around the robots. 

_Chris had mentioned earlier that they were similar to nurses. Patients had to have their blood pressure, heart rate and temperature taken everyday were all taken care of by these machines. More sophisticated work would need a human to do.“It may not seem like it, “ Chris’ noise over the microphone had said, trying to ease Yuma’s mind by focusing on something else, “but it’s hard for a robot to even adjust the pillows for a patient. One of the notable difficulties for a robot is that it is hard to determine the right level of force to use.”_

_“Then how does it know how to pour a cup of water?” Yuma asked. He turned away to face directly up when the doctor had gave him the hand gesture to lie properly. He turned away from the glass windows and faced the machine within the observation room._

_“Good question,” Chris commented over the sound of mouse clicking for starting up the machine. “Most of the robots here are modelled after humans. There’s been numerous experiments done to observe and measure how humans do these simple tasks. After that, they try to implement machines with similar features. It’s not really my field of expertise, but I do have the vague idea that they had been observing how humans would use their limbs and interact with the world around them.”_

_“Oh…” Yuma wondered. He wasn’t sure if he was expecting that kind of answer since Chris had the impression to know everything. Though there was a lot of information everywhere in the world.“I’ll start the test now. Would you mind closing your eyes, Yuma?”_

_Without complaining, Yuma closed his eyes, but remained wide awake as the hum of the machines got louder around him._

In the middle of this thoughts, back in the real world Yuma yelped when his nose and face bumped into Kaito’s back.“S-sorry!”, he immediately stepped back. Kaito looked like he was going to give some remark again about Yuma’s behaviour as he opened his mouth.

“Just… watch out.” He said finally, then tilted his head towards the car that was on the opposite side of the road. The boy scrambled after him, barely even watching either side of the road, before the two were both seated for the 10-minute drive.

As the car engine had started up, Yuma had asked a question about whether Kaito was busy with anything else for the rest of the day, to which the other answered with a simple “yes”. The boy had the impression that Kaito wasn’t really in the mood for small talk and distracted himself with the skyscrapers on the streets of the city. The night before, he had woken up from at Chris’ study. Here now in the city at broad daylight, similar to the trip to the hospital earlier, there were so many unfamiliar things to take in.

When the vehicle had rolled to a stop in front of traffic lights, from the corner of his eyes, Kaito saw Yuma pressing his face against the window. His crimson irises were focused on a pair of holograms for an advertisement. He almost was too distracted by Yuma’s look of awe at the screens that he had almost forgotten about the traffic light.

Soon though the car rolled to a stop, right in front of a building. Unlike most of the others that they had passed, this one did not have all of the large telescreens or holographic projections. Just plain windows and the glass door.  

The black haired boy blinked a little, reading the words. “We’re going to the police station?” Kaito had gotten out of the car wordlessly and leaving him with no choice but to quickly follow.

…  
…

When Kaito had mentioned about finding somewhere to sit and ask questions, Yuma wondered to himself if this was always the place that he would have chosen.

He looked left and right to where he was now sitting. There were other desks, some of them occupied with men wearing the general black uniform. On their left side pocket, there would be the crest and the emblem for “Heartland’s public security police”.

“Do you just use the computer?” Yuma asked, turning back to Kaito’s rather clean desk. Other than a blank notepad and a computer there wasn’t anything else.

“Sometimes,” Kaito answered as he was setting up a fingerprint scanner device, borrowed from another table. “When I’m outside, the phones that we’re given can handle most of what I need anyway.”

Once brought to the office where he worked, the first thing that Kaito did was check the list of missing persons. None of the descriptions fit Yuma. The next that he could do was run a couple of finger printing scans, then see if there were any matches of registered citizens. Meanwhile the boy didn’t make much noise, while giving undivided curiosity towards the machine as a red laser line was swiped slowly across the scanner surface.

To search through an entire database of all the local people in the city would take several minutes. Thus rather than waiting, Kaito chose to use that time to ask more questions. To Yuma’s confusion he was being asked his name, age, and whether he thinks he knows what sort of subjects he would have taken at school. If he went to school that is.

“Yeah… “ he shook his head once again at the last question. “Sorry… I really can’t remember much. There are times when a thought comes, but I can’t be sure if it’s being put into my head or it’s just my memory.”

At this Kaito turned to look at Yuma, as if searching for something in his eyes.“What do you mean by that?”

“Huh?” Yuma was confused.“When you say “put into my head”, what did you mean?”

Like before, Yuma didn’t have to think very long for his answer.“Like as in… things that you know… but you don’t know how you know? Or you don’t know why… but you know they are true? As though someone or something else is telling you about it.”

There was no stuttering in his words; either he had practised to lie well or that he really was telling the truth.

“That’s a interesting way to think of it.” Kaito commented carefully,” It almost sounds like telepathy…”

“Telepathy?”

Realizing the slip of his tongue, Kaito stopped himself from almost explaining about what Haruto had seen.

“Yes,” Kaito chose that moment to check the screen again, hoping the boy wouldn’t pick up his slight illogical leap of a thought. “It seemed as though you were implying as though someone was explicitly telling you in your mind?”

Yuma blinked, clearly confused. “Well… uh… maybe? You ever know the feeling like there’s someone telling you something?”

“Not really.” Kaito frowned. “Give an example?”

Yuma didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by the look on Kaito’s face. “Like..  umm… this morning! I was helping Mihael with heating the milk in the microwave. There was a voice that I should have used the timer. Like it told me that the timer button was supposed to be what I should press.”

Ideally, it wouldn’t be possible, if Yuma did not have any past recollections of using a microwave. Or if he was brainwashed thoroughly. But no comment was made, as the pause was interrupted from the beep from the computer. The search for the fingerprints had been completed. To add further to Yuma’s confusion though, Kaito wasn’t in a hurry to open the results.

“One other question. Does the name “Doctor Faker” mean anything to you?”He watched carefully whether there would be any response from Yuma’s eyes. Similar to before it was the blank look before the red irises.  

“No. I don’t know.” Yuma shook his head. His eyebrows crossed closer together, concentrating, but with no result. “Why? Who is he?”

“He’s my father” Kaito answered curtly, before cutting in when he saw the boy about to say something. “I suppose it may be a little early since it’s only been half a day. Let me know if anything new comes to mind.”

The tone of those last words were enough to tell Yuma that Kaito didn’t want to talk about it any further. He had also chosen that time to turn towards the screen.  

**No results matching the scanned fingerprint.**

A frustrated sigh was exhaled from the security police. Kaito leaned back against his seat, now his face distorted into a glare at the screen as though it would change.“Oh…” Yuma didn’t know anything else to say. He fiddled with his thumbs a little over the quiet but uncomfortable silence.

“That could just mean that you aren’t a registered citizen, so you could be an immigrant. Or someone from the red-light district. “ Kaito suddenly spoke up. His eyes were closed while pondering on the next choices. “I’ll file in a request with the immigration office. They keep records of the visitors and foreigners entering the city. Though… it would take a day or so on weekends.”

Yuma gave a small affirmative nod, while lowering his head for a moment.“Is something wrong?” Kaito asked.

“Huh?” The black-haired boy whipped his head up. “Uh. No! I was just thinking… that it’s a lot of work… you’re doing a lot to help me find who I am… and Chris as well… like… it sounded like he would have to do a lot just to run a couple of scans for my memory loss,“ he gave the sheepish laugh that was on his face since all morning. “I… guess I’m just happy… that you’re helping me look for my family. I don’t know how to thank you all…”

For a split moment, there was a small feeling of uneasiness mixed with guilt at the pit of Kaito’s stomach. _If only the boy knew._ Kaito’s motivation was merely because he had possible clues to his missing father. It was just an added trouble that the boy knew nothing about himself, and he needed to get that sorted before even tracing for other hints.

“It’s my job…” was all Kaito had said as he turned back to the disappointing computer screen. “Anyway. It doesn’t look like there’s anything we can use to find out about your identity. “

“Ok. But Chris will be able to tell me about the scans later tonight?”

Kaito almost let out a whispered curse. He had forgotten that Yuma was still under the impression that the results weren’t out yet.“Yes… Hopefully we will know later…” he said, “That has just reminded me. You don’t have a home at this moment.“

Yuma’s eyes widened in realization. Kaito was right. Until he knew who he was, he didn’t have a clue of where he was going to stay. Wasn’t his family worried? The previous night, talking with Mihael and Haruto had made him forgotten about it.

“I’ll have a talk with Chris later if he can spare a room for a little longer.“Kaito said. Having checked the “missing persons” list earlier, he wasn’t even surprised. “But for sleeping arrangements, you won’t be left here at the police centre.” The police station did have places for people to stay overnight. Most of it were cells though, more for troublemakers. At this moment he had no reason for locking Yuma there.

Yuma repeated himself with words of thanks for the umpteenth time. Kaito didn’t reply at this. He got up, but one can see his ears were getting pink. Policemen weren’t thanked for their job many times.

“We should leave for lunch. Mihael would have finished his classe, and Haruto with his weekend sports activity. “

“Awesome!” the boy jumped up from the seat, earning a few looks from the other policemen in the office as Kaito walked out.Yuma looked more than eager to meet Mihael again, and also with the mention of more food. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been very occupied in the last few weeks. So it'll take a while to edit out the drafts and upload it here. Once again, let me know if there are things that are unclear.


	13. Psychopathic Relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A symptom of a psychopathic relationship is if the victim finds themselves being isolated from their other friends, all because of the other in that relationship. Turns out I can be a sadistic writer to be putting even Haruto in potential danger. 
> 
> And oh deer, I'm even confusing myself at times with this stupid robot OC’s gender at times. He gives me headaches…. Since Electronica has specified they are A.I., I will refer to A.I. as their consciousness.

Though Haruto wasn’t able to have dinner with Kaito at their usual family restaurant the night before, he was now sitting with him and Yuma and Mihael for lunch. The youngest Arclight brother had been taking coaching classes all of Saturday morning, yet throughout the meal one can hardly see him tired as he talked to Yuma about his favourite fantasy series.

Though Yuma didn’t understand everything, the gleam in his eyes showed that he enjoyed listening to Mihael talk.

It would seem as though both teenagers were just school friends, though possibly one with more of an academic knowledge gap. Kaito wasn’t sure whether he had met someone who could shift their mood as quick as Yuma.

_It’s like his face can change every few seconds._

Not wanting to be caught staring at the two, he turned back to Haruto, pointing gently to his little brother to at least pick something from the other dishes that he hadn’t been too eager to eat from. As usual, though Haruto wasn’t too picky if he was told to eat something else.

“Did you have something you wanted to do this afternoon, Haruto?” Kaito asked casually. “Are you going to meet your friends? Or do you want to do something together?”

When he had said “together”, it always meant just the two of them. Weekdays were impossible, but once a weekend Kaito always wanted to reserve sometime just with Haruto. It had been a while when they went to the amusement park together, come to think of it.

Realization flashed across the younger boy’s eyes. “Oh! I just remembered, Eli said that they’re going to meet at the arcade. Can I go?”

It wasn’t the usual place, but Kaito nodded to show that he didn’t have problems. Haruto spending time with people of his age was something that should be encouraged. “Do you have enough money?” He hadn’t visited that place for years, and wasn’t sure if they were still using the same system of using game coins.

“Yeah! I know not to spend it on those claw machines.” He said before going back to finishing his food, obviously really looking forward to it.

“That’s good. Then after lunch, I’ll take you there.”

Haruto swallowed his mouthful of food to answer back quickly. “Oh, you don’t have to. I can go there myself, since I know where it is.”

“No, it’s fine, I just want to make sure you get there safely.” Kato insisted. Haruto would have gave a gentle protest, but knowing his brother’s care for him, he finally nodded with a small muffle of “thanks”.

As they had left the restaurant, Mihael was had asked Yuma what he was going to do.

“I’m afraid I have another class before we can go and pick up my brother.” Mihael said in an apologetic tone. Yuma shook his head, while obviously thinking the same thing. Part of him didn’t want to join Haruto, despite that the younger sibling looked more than happy to when he had asked him.

“Hm…” He didn’t have much of an answer. He could perhaps just wander around the city. He opened his mouth but something green had caught his eye.

There was the option of the park.

“Oh, how about I’ll wait for you at the park?” He pointed towards the opposite side of the road. There was a rather large park in the city. Though it wasn’t small enough to easily find your friend, it wasn’t hard to navigate with the accessible maps. Yuma glanced over at the rather tall trees for a moment with strange interest.

“You sure?” Mihael said, opening his bag. Seeing that Yuma didn’t have an electronic book nor electronic tablet device, he wondered how was he going to keep himself entertained for the whole next hour. He rummaged past the neatly packed notebooks before taking out a tablet. Or more specifically, a tablet for reading books “Here, there’s a downloaded fantasy book that I’ve been reading. It’s not the first in the series, but… if you get bored you might like it.”

The black-haired boy started down at the cover for a moment. His smile widened further and used two hands to take it. “Thanks! I’ll take good care of it and read it!”

With that settled, the four had left, with Kaito catching the bus with Haruto to the arcade.

The arcade was in the corner of the avenue, facing a shopping plaza. It was rather busy at this time of the day, especially since it was a weekend. Nevertheless if you were patient enough, you’d still be able to play on a machine that you wanted. Haruto had practically burst through the automatic doors when he had seen his friends there. Notably there were more boys but there were a few girls.

Stopping just at a moment, Haruto turned back just for a moment to wave cheerfully at Kaito. There was a brief but evident smile on the elder brother’s face, before nodding to tell Haruto the silent message that he would pick him up later again.

Once Haruto had joined his friends circle, the face had dropped and was replaced with a grim look. Though it was a weekend, it didn’t seem like a rest for him. He walked away from the arcade, preparing to call Gauche to ask about what the policeman had mentioned to him earlier that morning.

…

…

“Electronica! You’re here?”

To the surprise of Haruto and a few who had came a little later, Electronica the A.I. from their class had walked in with another girl. Their eyes flashed into the red colour for a moment before waving.

“Hello!” The high-pitched voice meant that they were impersonating as a girl now. “Thank you for inviting me here! I am so happy!”

Seeing her wave, something caught the childrens’ eyes.

“Hey, did you have that barcode on your wrist yesterday?” Eli, the one who had invited everyone pointed at the artificial arm that was waving at them earlier.

“No, I was using a different body.” Electronica answered. “My real self is just an A.I, just software that can be uploaded to several compatible machines. This one is just a prototype, just in case I might cause something to break when I go out unsupervised.”

Some of the words went over the young children’s heads, but they understood the gist of what the A.I. had meant.

…

…

Haruto didn’t get to play at the arcade very often. He had always preferred to play with his brother and the Arclight sibings at home with a TV gaming console. And in a quieter place where one can mash buttons on the couch. Here was noisy, but he rather liked competing with others of his age.

“Mind if I join in?” He turned towards the Electronica who had clambered onto the seat of a gaming car next to the one he was sitting on. “We can race together and see who comes first.”

“Sure! Though.. Wouldn’t you win since you’re a robot?” Haruto had seen some articles a while back, of A.I’s able to take math tests just like any other student. The previous predecessor for Electronica, Trancia was able to play several instruments just like professionals.

“Not really,” Electronica tried to sound casual as they leaned back on the seat. They lifted their left hand while flexing the fingers. “I know that my limb movement is still limited. I can’t move it in all the angles that you can do. And I don’t know how much grip to use for everything. Software can be limited by the hardware, you know.”

“Huh… then I guess we can try it out?” Haruto offered, starting up the game. The A.I. gave a nod before turning its head to look at the screen. It was now showing the options for choosing their racecar avatar and the obstacle themes.

“Just curious.” Electronica spoke up. “Who was that person who had brought you here? Was he your brother?”

“You mean on the way to the arcade? Yeah, that’s my elder brother.” Haruto said.

“Oh, I see. He looked too young to be a parent.” Electronica tried a random compliment. Haruto didn’t give a response though, when the start buzzer alerted the beginning of the race.

“Sorry, you were saying?”

“I was saying that… it isn’t a surprise that he is your brother. He looks too young to be a parent.” Electronica mentioned, somewhat a bit louder this time.

“Oh right, yeah.” Haruto mentioned. In the middle of bypassing the incoming projectiles and having his racecar reach the end goal, he was too distracted to wonder how did a robot decide whether a person looked young or not. He exhaled a breath of relief as the first round of the game had ended. Electronica gave a small smile towards him. “You’ve won, congratulations. Let’s go another round?”

“Sure!” Haruto said.

In the one minute of playing, he had forgotten that the one beside him was a mere assembly of metal, plastic and tangible software. “Did you enjoy it as well, Electronica? You’re not doing very bad yourself. You came third, didn’t you?”

Electronica’s voice temporarily turned into a boy’s, laughing in a happy manner. “Thanks! I did practice before. Did you play here at the arcade a lot to be good at this game?”

“No, not really, “ Haruto said, slightly proud that he didn’t have to put so much effort into this. “I had taken a few driving lessons at a public simulator labs before. I want to drive a car as soon as I turn twelve.”

At this age, with autonomous cars that would regulate it’s operations, the age restrictions for learning how to “drive”, or really “ride a car” alone was getting smaller and smaller.

“But I thought you can’t, since you are a little boy.”

“I’m not a little boy.” Haruto replied back immediately, giving the A.I. a somewhat hurt look. Like any boy of his age, he didn’t’ like the sound or implication of being called in need of help or being weak and a small spark of irritation would always be ignited.

“But you are, aren’t you?” Electronica used their arms to quickly turn the wheel pad, trying to change the vehicle to steer around the right corner. Their general polite but fun-loving voice didn’t change much at all, not able to detect the hint of irritation of Haruto’s words. “You were being taken here by your elder brother.”

“He just wants to do that to make sure I’m safe though,” Haruto answered a little more slowly this time. “It’s not like I really need him or want him to take the trouble…”

“Then don’t let him.” Electronica said, twisting again their arm to turn the wheel. Around the corner on the race track, they had taken the lead. Haruto wasn’t as bothered as he pressed the acceleration button.

“So you mean don’t let him drop me off at school?”

Electronica had nodded, though Haruto didn’t pick up on it. “Yeah.” They talked, holding their current position with the wheel. “I thought that people drop children off. So that means you still need to be taken care of.”

Still need to be taken care of.

Haruto’s fingers were still on autopilot, knowing when to steer from incoming obstacles. However, the words were bugging at him at the back of his mind. His brother did have to take care of him. Kaito had never said that it was tiring, with that false illusion of a smile.

“Yay! I win!” Electronica’s said happily.

There was the beeping sound of the machine. He had reached the end of the racecourse without realizing. Electronica’s avatar racecar was waving banners as the winner in first place this time.

The robot had gotten off the simulator car and stood next to his.

“What’s wrong? You don’t look so good.” Electronica asked, though the voice still carried the similar flatness of a machine. “I think you would have won.”

“I… was thinking about what you said.” Haruto said as he faced them, as though he would be looking at them eye to eye instead of a mere pair of lenses. He blinked a little while trying to formulate his words. “My brother does take care of me a lot.”

“It’s his job, right?” Electronica tilted their head. The gesture that they were asking for observations. “Older brothers are supposed to take care of the younger siblings.”

“Well, yes, if you say it like that … but,” Haruto’s small hands had balled into fists around his knees, while trying to find the right words to convey what he meant. “I don’t want him always having to take care of me. He’s always tired from work… and he’s… he doesn’t get time to have fun for himself…”

“Why not?” Electronica had leaned forward a little, due to the boy’s voice getting a little softer. Whoever programmed the A.I. had certainly forgotten to make it take hints of sensitive topics in a conversation.

“Because… when we’re going home, I can see that there are other people in the street. They look like the same age as him, but… they’re not always at work. They aren’t always looking after their younger brothers.”Haruto wasn’t sure who was putting all these words, and how much he had realized, but he wasn’t able to stop as the more he realized all of the obvious signs that was there all this time. Strange how talking it out can bring all them to light.

Kaito was lying about his happiness.

Haruto knew very well that he had been searching for their father. He had worried about not spending enough time with Haruto. He had been worried about the boy being at home himself. He had been lying…

Because of Haruto.

Being told that it was Kaito’s job didn’t make him feel better in the slightest.

“As I said before, just don’t let him?” Electronica said again. Haruto lifted his head in confusion. “How?”

“I thought you could ask him to not do that.” The robot said. “Tell him that you don’t need to be taken care of.”

Numbly the boy nodded. He wasn’t expecting such a straight-forward or easy answer. However, he was smart enough to see it. “But… He’ll still worry though. Lot so of people are worried about primary school children, like us. Well, not you, Electronica, but humans of our age, since there’s stories about being in car accidents, or being kidnapped.”

“Oh, I see.” Electronica nodded. “Are you scared?”

“No!” Haruto answered in defense, not wanting to be seen as a “small boy” like earlier. “I mean… I’ll be careful so I won’t be. I’ll be scared if that happens, but I won’t let that happen.”

“Oh, I see now.” They nodded. “So you mean you’re going to be careful when you’re going home now?”

“Yeah.” Haruto said, “when I’m going home without my brother picking me up… I’ll be just as careful.”

Electronica seemed to be taking a bit longer to answer. After a short pause they blinked, nodded and spoke again in a boyish voice. “That’s brave and nice of you then, to think about your older brother like that.”

Haruto’s ears merely went pink a little, frantically trying to divert the topic to elsewhere. “What about you, Electronica? How do you get back home?”

“Do you mean how do I get back to my test lab?” they asked for confirmation. Haruto nodded.

“There’s usually a small van. The back has some tools that can be used for maintaining this robot body. And there’s a few communication equipment. I ride that sometimes. At school from now on, I’m going to be walking and taking the public transport though.”

“Just like us?”

“Yeah!” Electronica beamed. “They’re trying to test if this version of me is able to learn how to handle walking, running and climbing stairs at school for longer periods of time without running into problems.”

Haruto understood what they were saying, but there was one detail that had the boy confused. “This version?”

However, Electronica’s facial expression mimicked a slightly saddened child’s face. “Sorry, Haruto. I need to leave now.” They pointed at the clock. About two hours had passed in the arcade. “Next time, I can tell you more about version control if you want. It’s not for your age, but you might be smart enough to answer that.”

“Alright!” Haruto’s eager voice was back. He hopped off the racing model, walking Electronica towards the entrance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I felt like I was being a little too repetitive at times in this one…  
> And is it just me, or I feel like each chapter is getting longer and longer?


	14. Nested Traps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who try to trap Nasch and Vector end up finding themselves ensnared in one instead.
> 
> No rest for the Barians as they find out a little more about the person who's been observing their fight with Don Thousand's followers...

That very next morning, back in the red-light district, the door was opened again in thier old apartment. **  
**

Both Nasch and Vector looked around, inspecting for any differences at their old apartment such as things being overturned or machines being used. They had prepared for the worst situation that things may have already been taken by Don Thousand’s followers. However, from the conversation this morning, Durbe had insisted that there was another way to gain information on the seven of them.

The window had been left with the curtain drawn back, and Nasch had walked over to open in, letting the morning air ventilate the room along with the sunlight.  

Vector was the only who had his own room, having been the most difficult to share with in the past. Thus the smallest makeshift one at the end of the corridor belonged to him. While Nasch had gone to pack some of their equipment, he had ventured around the other rooms to check that there weren’t any new traps.

He gave no complaints when given a riskier job. Nasch knew very well what would keep him entertained. It was as though Vector’s purpose in life was always to look for that moment of excitement of escaping from death and danger.

The two didn’t say anything to each other as they rummaged through the files and checked the last time that the computer had been powered on. Soon within less than fifteen minutes, Nasch had walked back to the living room to find Vector fiddling with the knobs of the half-fixed radio. It was the one that Durbe picked up just to tinker with in his own time, but didn’t get far without a manual and study in amateur radio. .

“It doesn’t look like they moved anything…”Nasch said.

Vector merely shrugged. “So then… if there’s no traps in here they’re outside then?”

It seems as though Mizael had predicted correctly. As the two Barians left the apartment building, the street became more and more quiet as the minutes rolled away. Nasch hadn’t walked more than a few steps, before he made a hand signal to Vector.

The orange-haired man didn’t even need a repeat to know what that meant and was first to dash off towards the alley. Nasch ran only about half a step behind, and he glanced back. Shadows along the ground moved as they stepped through the alley to the next avenue. It was very faint, but one could hear that there were other footsteps.

The occasional car had drove by on the avenue they were on, and the their eyes would sweep across the driver’s window. It was when they had reached an intersection, that Nasch and Vector had stopped their walking completely.

From the corner of the street intersection, several men were waiting. They were all wearing dress shirts and pants, mustering glares as though to intimidate them. Vector only put on the mask of a lost child though.

“So he was right… “ the one at the front foremost looked towards the backpack that Nasch had. “we wouldn’t have to look for the hard drives since they would have been well hidden by the Barians. We just need them to come and collect it themsevles.”

In annoyance, Ryoga clicked his tongue for the man using that name out in the public.

“Move.”

Ryoga’s face couldn’t get any annoyed. From.behind the corners there were casted shadows of more men. Each holding up a firearms of different length and sizes.

“I’ll say this one more time. Move.” Ryoga’s voice was now dangerously low. He always gave the impression of getting additionally aggressive or impatient if things weren’t going as he had hoped. Vector seemed to be even more elated in hearing that tone, as he reached his hand into his pocket.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna stop us?”Vector said challenging Nasch if he could make the situation even worse. There was a sudden, small silver glint under the sun. He immediately lifted his hand, as though to throw the knife in his hand towards the man. The supposed victim from Vector’s knife throw staggered a few steps back, yelling at the others to fire.

The bang of a bullet shot cut through the air, soon followed by a whole series of shots from all corners of the intersection. Ryoga ducked while Vector jumped several feet away, each time swinging his head away just by a breadth from the rain of bullets.

The rain of bullets soon died down along with the shrieks in the far distance. Ryoga wasn’t looking at the other fleeing residents around the street, but rather at the man.

“What the hel-,” his voice low with disbelief that more at the bodies lying on the road. All of them had a glowing electronic bracelet, that looked like a digital watch.

“Oy oy,” Vector had walked behind Nasch again, tilting his head towards those same bodies. “aren’t you the only one left? I would have thought that Don Thousand’s followers would have been able to be stronger and more fun than that.”

All of them? He turned towards his back. That was his mistake, as Nasch took that chance to close the distance. A yelp, a twist of the arm and the man found himself on the ground with a dull but heavy pain in the neck.

“What are you after?” Nasch asked while Vector hopped towards them. He looked around for a moment at the rooftops of the buildings, then at the alleyways.

“I’m asking you a question.“ Nasch’s voice lowered, his grip on the man’s neck even tighter. Though he didn’t look even half as muscular as Gilag, Ryoga knew how small details in the movement can cause torturous pain. “Are you after Merag’s information? Or for that similar thing with the civil war -

“Civil war?” at the mention of this there was a hint of a hysterical humour within the voice. The man finally looked back up again. Though his fear of being at the mercy of the two Barians was there, he didn’t look as devastated anymore with the way he was half facing the sunny sky.

“Civil war, you say?” he cried out again before laughing. “You Barians are living in the lie as well. There is no such thing as the civil war! Nothing like that happened in the last 10 years! ALL this time you’ve been living a lie! A LIE!”

Ryoga’s hand changed from its gripped fist position when suddenly the man stopped talking. He choked, leaned his upper torso forward and clutched the front of his shirt desperately.

There was a digital bracelet in his hands, the shade was just enough to allow them to see the faint glow of the red indicator light.

Ryoga had already stepped back. “This bracelet, is this what you were talking about yesterday?” he asked, standing alongside Vector. Both of them were watching the man writhe and wither towards the ground, until he was lifeless on the ground.

…

…

It had taken Mizael 15 tries for the 9 followers to have fallen. It appears that his training from the security police office had gone a little rusty. For long range at least.

Still stationed on a casino building’s rooftop, he shifted the sniping rifle’s position, focusing the lenses on various the last man, who had just collapsed in front of Nasch and Vector.

Through the bluetooth headset, Ryouga and Vector’s conversation confirmed that there was no one around them.

“Though… the bracelet is doing it’s job on them again.” Vector commented. Mizael merely grunted an acknowledge, his senses on alert again. Someone was likely to be watching the scene at the intersection unfold.

Up above the buildings, without the coloured lights and people, he could easily single it out if there was another person. The silhouette of another person four blocks away, and facing in his direction. In mild panic, he pressed his body flatter towards the ground and repositioned his rifle as fast as possible.

Ryoga’s voice rang through the headset, but Mizael did not hear as his finger pressed the trigger. The muffler for the sniper made him hear barely nothing but a loud hiss. Instantly he saw part of the shadow burst into liquid form from the left shoulder and arm.

The body collapsed, without much of a stagger and disappearing behind the air conditioner vent pipe. Cursing that his view was blocked, he almost ripped the door open and raced down the emergency stairs.

“Nasch,” Mizael spoke, while his hands were packing the long-sized rifle into his bag. “There was another on the roof.”

“Another? Did they see you? Were you able to identify them” Nasch asked, referring to their plan for a sniper.

“Hm… I think it’s probably the nosy but lazy one like last time.” Vector said, over Nasch’s voice saying that they were going to corner this additional person.

Running towards the building wasn’t tiring but seemed so long. It was at a pub, for particular tastes. It wasn’t open at this time, so it took both Nasch and Vector to ram the door open, before they climbed up the stairs. Six floors up from ground. It wouldn’t be possible for them to get down, if this was the only way up.

The door for the rooftop wasn’t looked, nor opened and Mizael was the first to burst through.

The three looked around warily, no one was there. It was just like the others, a few unlit advertising boards behind them. A lightning rod in the centre, and pipes running around all edges of the building. Being the one best at provoking people, Vector made a circle around the centre. His footsteps slow but loud to hear over the top of the humming of the ventilation pipes. .

“Come out now!~” In the middle of his singsong coaxing voice, he stopped just near the vent chute, where Mizael had made a head tilt towards.

“Hm… how about I’ll take a guess then…?” slowly Vector took out his hand from his pocket, revealing his switchblade. Without even counting down from three to one, he suddenly jumped over the chute.

“Surprise!”

His form froze with his arm raised, before the arms fell to his sides.

“Huh…” his voice lowered, and sounding bored. Both Mizael and Nasch raised their eyebrows but wordlessly walked over to peer.

Near the edge of the building, where Mizael had seen the figure earlier, no one was there. Not even a bird. Only a small puddle of white liquid. The blonde-haired Barian crouched down, hesitating before dabbing two fingers into the liquid. Before flinching in mild disgust.

“This is… cooling liquid for robotic limbs…” Mizael commented and the other two crowded around as well.

“Say that again?” Nasch asked as the eyebrows creased closer together while he looked down at the street below. There didn’t seem be such a trial of this liquid.

“It’s just liquid which absorbs the heat in different parts of a machine by travelling to all parts of the robot. It’s similar to the circulatory liquid in a fridge, to stop complex machines from heating.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait” Vector shook his head while almost laughing. “You’re saying it’s a machine? Or a robot?”

Mizael explained that he had seen clearly he had shot them through the shoulder, and the side. It was close to the heart. “I may have missed; but it doesn’t seem likely they can climb down, and there wouldn’t be a hint of drop of blood near their shoulder and heart.”

“There’s one other possible way.”Nasch replied slowly. “According to Don Thousand, when he was after Rio, he said that people with these powers have a higher physical capability. I don’t know the limit, but if you’ve seen Rio’s then you know what I mean.”

Mizael sighed,” Touche. Human or machine. At the end of the day, it means that the enemy will be going back to report to Don Thousand at this moment.”

“But if we don’t have what Don Thousand is after, we will able to find this nosy one again, that’s the feeling I have,” Vector inspected his rather clean hands before retrieving the switchblade back into his pocket.”

At the very least, as Nasch had pointed out, if they used proper methods, it should be simpler to track down someone with powers. No one disagreed, except…

“There’s one other thing,”Mizael looked at the ventilation chute, then at the lightning rod about two meters away. He briefly turned to see building where he was before. No doubt they had seen him, and yet on his way down, none of the followers had been set there to ambush him.

“I had a quick look of their height in comparison to the lightning antenna, and they were barely taller than this chute pipe.” Mizael said.

“Interesting,” Nasch replied sarcastically. “So?”

“Which means… either they’re really short, or we’re dealing with a child here.”

Standing there a few moments longer, they didn’t find anything new. Vector descended the stairs with a similar dampened mood. Though possibly because the culprit had ran away already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done brief proofreading and edits, but I might have to go back to these last few chapters again. When I've err... get my energy back.  
> I shall continue try to finish this one to the best of my ability. (Hopefully within the next few months before I forget all the ideas I had for this)


	15. [Apologies]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not really a chapter

I've come to a decision to temporarily drop this fanfiction project. I'm very sorry for those who have supported or have taken a read of it. I'm sorry to have wasted your time.

My reasons:  
1\. I am far too occupied with work at school. It's the peak of the semester, and I don't expect to have much time until it's June.  
2\. I've been rechecking everything I've written so far, and there are parts that I'm extremely not happy with. I wish to redo them again.

What I intend to do from now:  
**Option 1:**

The problem with this mystery and AU world-type story I'm writing is that facts given from previous chapters may be needed. With the current pacing I'm releasing chapters, I feel it's probably better if I rewrite everything and release all the chapters at once. Everything will be more condensed and hopefully my writing would be better. 

**Option 2:**

I may permanently drop the project. I don't hate my idea of the sci-fi AU, nor my initial ideas for this (which haven't changed and are still sitting in my notebook), but I may just decide to do fanart instead. If that happens, I'll make sure to delete it. 

 

Originally I only really wrote it because I had ideas for Kaito, Ryoga and Akari, and was also craving some photonshipping/dokidokishipping stuff. I only decided to write it on a whim. Thank you for everyone who has given it a read, and putting up with my poor English. Thank you for the kudos and the support. 


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